Strays, Episode 2: Last of the Winterstorms
by Wild Cat 214
Summary: Driven from Faded Dreams, the motley band of Hiccup, Cog, and Levi must travel to the Spire of Heaven's Library for the help they seek. But what they find there proves bigger than anything they've faced before. Can they handle the truth? Platonic HiccupxOC.
1. Chapter 1

***Cue epic opening song***

 _ **Chapter 1: The Maze of Myst**_

 **Author's Notes: Hey, hey, hey! I'm back! This is Wild Cat 214, and you're reading episode 2 of Strays, on .**

 **Okay, enough parodies of Disney Channel.**

 **If you're a new reader to this series, I recommend reading episode 1,** ** _Lost Homes_** **, first. The events of this story might not make much sense if you don't.**

 **Reviews:**

 **mc arno (Apr. 3, Chapter 10 of Episode 1) – Merci beaucoup! Je parle un peu du français, et j'étais trés joyeux t'aime mon récit (J'espère mon français était bon).**

 **The Story Of Your Life (Apr. 3, Chapter 10 of Episode 1) – Tell that something it deserves a cookie, because you're right. No one is going back to Berk anytime soon. As a matter of fact, cookies for everyone! *flings a basket of cookies into the air like confetti***

 **I hope you guys have fun with this episode. I know I will :)**

 **Disclaimer: HTTYD is not mine.**

 **Key:**

 **0*0*0 – scene change**

 **Horizontal line – perspective change**

* * *

The trip was grueling. Hiccup worried that Toothless wouldn't be able to fly much farther, and from the looks of it, Cog and Levi were in the same boat. How his Seraph managed to fly with those tiny wings on his ankles was a mystery, but after spending a few days in Faded Dreams, he realized it probably had a simple answer. Magic.

When they had flown long enough that a streamer of white rocks arced in the sky over them, Levi and Dhole began spiraling down to what looked like a huge pit in the side of a hill. Even with the pale light from the rocks above, it was impossible to see what that hole was, exactly.

Cog made a noise halfway between a squeak and a groan when they got closer, and Snow looked at her with worry while Ash maneuvered. They touched down right at the edge of the hole, which turned out to be some sort of tunnel leading deep into the ground. Levi dismounted and began walking down the rough stairs along the floor of the tunnel, but the white-haired girl put a hand to his shoulder and stopped him.

"Levi, you cannot be serious about going in there. That's the Maze of Myst," she said, pointing out something that must have been obvious to the two of them. Hiccup got off of Toothless and joined them, folding his arms in front of him curiously.

"The Maze of Myst? What's that?" he asked, glancing between them for the answer. Cog sighed and let go of Levi to lead Hiccup a few feet away, probably to keep Levi from hearing their conversation. Why that was the case, he had no clue.

"The Maze of Myst is a very dangerous place filled with monsters. It's this massive tunnel system, and no one really knows just how deep it goes. Some say it reaches all the way to Eldur, realm of the fire _Guði_ ," she explained quietly, glancing over her shoulder. He nodded and frowned a bit.

"Okay. Why do you need to tell me over here?" he replied softly. The girl groaned quietly and lightly cuffed him.

"Because Levi doesn't know that you're from Berk, and something tells me we should keep it a secret until we know for sure what's going on. Things have been crazy lately. We don't need any more insanity right now," she hissed, switching from her normal pleasant self to the intimidating Cog he had seen earlier that night. Gods, had it really been only a few hours since he had used his Myst Magic, helped her find Snow and Ash, and run away with her and Levi?

"Are you two done? Because we need to see the Librarian of the Spire of Heaven. She's bound to have something that can help us in those musty tomes of hers," Levi said casually. The two of them eyed him uncertainly. Cog had been reluctant to go into the Maze, and from what she had said, it didn't sound like such a friendly place.

"And, uh, how are we going to get there without being seen?" Hiccup asked nervously. He shrugged in answer.

"The Maze should help with that. We can travel below ground until we find an exit that will get us there," he answered casually, as if this was something Hiccup should have known already.

"Right, but how will we find a way through?" the young Viking clarified. At this, the other man seemed stumped, until they saw Cog crouch down and start pulling things from her bag, the same one she had grabbed just before they left. First came some sort of round thing with a tiny piece of bi-colored metal behind a glass cover, one end red and the other silver, then came a few canteens of water(?), a silvery stand with a pitch black cover on a chain over the top, and, finally, a large roll of paper.

"I can help with that." The teenage girl grinned with delight and took the cover off of the stand, revealing a small anolite crystal that illuminated the area around them, and pushed the paper flat.

"The Maze of Myst is actually a huge structure that lies underneath every part of the Fractured Lands. We can use these passages to travel unseen until we get to the Spire," she replied confidently, running her finger along the paper to a circular spot on the map. The male members of the group stared at her in mild shock, and she blushed.

"What? I paid attention in some classes. I'll have you know that I liked history and geography," she protested. They all looked amongst themselves, then to the dark hole leading into the bowels of the earth.

"I guess it's our best bet. The sun will be rising soon, and Darksoul's soldiers won't hesitate to follow us into the Land of the Rejected if they see us flying during the day," Levi said, glancing toward the lightening sky to the east. They had spent the entire night beginning an adventure, and now they had to continue it by entering a place known as the Maze of Myst. Was it the only way? Most likely. Was it a good idea? Probably not.

That cheerful thought in mind, Hiccup steeled himself for the descent into the Maze, just as Levi and Cog did with their bond animals. With heavy heart and stomach fluttering, the intrepid party began to walk down the steps into the darkness.

* * *

I have to admit, it isn't called the Maze of Myst for nothing. The labyrinthine passages would have boggled the minds of even the best explorers, the sheer number of monsters would have driven away the bravest of warriors, and the constant Myst made it hard to see anything beyond its silvery, iridescent billows. Of course, I felt more powerful, and the Myst helped replenish our supplies whenever Levi used an offensive Magic to help drive away monsters (Dhole allowed him to summon up a ghostly Seraph, which I'm pretty sure counts as dusk-affinity Magic) or Hiccup made us invisible before we passed by a particularly difficult monster. The various bond animals helped, too, with Toothless' purple fire, Ash's normal fire, and Snow's ice convincing some monsters that it really wasn't worth it to attack us.

We were doing pretty well as we walked through the tunnels, that is, until we came upon what looked like the ancient ruins of some long-forgotten dweorgir temple. It probably was. The dweorgir had been around since long before the Catastrophe, though they had understandably avoided human contact before that period. Back then, the old gods had been a lot more prominent, and their followers had been a lot more prone to fight anything that wasn't human. We were able to see what it was because Toothless blasted the ceiling with a bolt of fire, making the entire room glow.

But it wasn't the temple that was bad. No, it was what lay inside that was bad.

It was really Hiccup's fault. He was the one who saw the treasure chest in a nook and began going towards it. If I hadn't grabbed his arm and pulled him away, we would probably have been short a member of our party, and I doubt Toothless would like losing his partner.

"What is it? What's wrong?" he asked as I led him back to the safety of the group. I glared at the chest, then looked back at him pleadingly.

"Hiccup, if you know what's good for you, you will not go anywhere near that treasure. I don't care if someone says it contains the most valuable thing in the world, you are not to step within a yard of it," I ordered quietly. He jerked his arm free of my grasp and backed away a bit.

"Why? It's just a box," Hiccup said, starting back towards it. Levi let out a sigh of disgust and waved for me to catch him before he got himself killed. I hurried after him, and I managed to stop him from moving right when we heard the humming sound.

"Uh, Cog, what is that noise?" he asked, worry creeping into his voice. All I could do was stare at the treasure chest in horror. It was the source of the faint buzzing, and that meant we were too close.

"Listen to me very carefully. We are going to back away slowly, quietly, and without any sudden movements, okay, Hiccup?" I murmured, gently tugging on his shoulders. He nodded imperceptibly, and we inched our way back to Levi, Dhole, Snow, Ash, and Toothless. With our movement, the buzzing faded away to be replaced with an eerie silence, and we all shared a look.

"We need to get out of this place. Come on, I think I see a tunnel this way," Levi muttered once we were within the safety of our group, motioning us toward another dark hole. Both of us said nothing, preferring instead to heed his advice and flee the area as quickly as we dared. It seemed all was going well for us; at least, until we entered the room of the temple containing the tunnel's mouth.

The hum was louder this time, probably because there were at least twenty of the treasure chests in this room. My gaze darted from one brass-decorated wooden box to the next, dread building up inside until I felt like it would start overflowing from me. This was really not good.

"Whatever you do, no loud noises or sudden movements. They only attack if they think you're scared or a threat," the oldest of our group ordered quietly. Hiccup seemed confused, but who could blame him? I'd have been confused, too, if I didn't know what they were.

But the various gods must have thought it funny to see us swarmed, because, wouldn't you know it, that was when Hiccup kicked a loose chunk of rubble and made it skitter across the hard, stony floor.

The treasure chests began unfolding, the lids lifting up and splitting in half down the middle to become the "antennae" of the heads that leered at us with hungry red eyes. The fronts, sides, and backs split into six parts for each chest, the fronts and backs splitting in half like the lids, to become flat plates of armor on spindly, two-jointed legs that ended in sharp points. Pairs of filmy, veined, transparent wings unfurled from the segmented bodies, and long tails ending with two menacing stingers uncurled from underneath the bellies of the insectoid monsters around us. Slowly, the harmless treasure chests became...

"Oh... my... gods. What... what _are_ those things?" Hiccup stammered, fear drenching his voice to my left. Levi growled with apprehension and readied a sword that had been on his back. He spat on the ground and glared back at the monsters, sword held in front of him in the style usually taught to the royal family of Faded Dreams.

"Mimics," he replied viciously. Hiccup shot me a look of confusion and fear as he grabbed his crossbow, and I pulled my own weapon from its strap on my back. This was not going to be an easy fight.

0*0*0

Let's get one thing straight. I said it wasn't going to be an easy fight. Boy, was I wrong!

It was the most difficult thing I've ever faced in my entire life.

First of all, you have to understand something. Mimics usually attack by ambush, if they're alone in their territory. Unsuspecting, inexperienced adventurers will approach them, ignoring or not hearing the buzz they make in anticipation of a meal, and when they open the treasure chest, their tail, which is folded up at just the right position, will strike and poison or paralyze their prey. Mimics eat people, it's a well-known fact, which makes it pretty rare for someone to be bonded to them. Strut was the exception, not the rule, in that Stefan, his Mimic partner, preferred to eat the same things humans like. In fact, Stefan was the only reason I knew what a Mimic was and what it looked like in ambush mode. That was why I had tried to get Hiccup away from that lone Mimic, before he was attacked and eaten before our eyes (or possibly after we could no longer see). I should have known there would be a hive of them here. This was the sort of place adventurers liked to go to, in search of lost treasure of the dweorgir. Perfect hunting ground for Mimics. In these numbers, they acted more like wolves than the solitary insects did.

As of this moment, we were running for our lives through the tunnels. The entire hive of Mimics was on our tails, almost literally (one had tried to take a chunk out of Snow and Ash's tail, only to be lightly roasted and frozen by the offended dragon), and any monsters within a three mile radius had cleared out before they were caught and brought back to the queen Mimic as dinner. This made our lives both easier and harder. Easier because _we_ didn't have any extra distractions. Harder because it meant the _Mimics_ didn't have any extra distractions.

We had just entered a large, very black cave when my friend decided to speak.

"You know, I never thought I'd be running through a cave with two other people, two dragons, and a wolf-thing while being chased by living treasure chests that want to eat me!" Hiccup shouted over the ruckus. Levi smirked, I just gave him a tight grin, and the bond animals we were riding (hey, it was faster than our own feet, and it made getting through the tunnels a lot quicker) made brief noises of amusement. At least someone thought this was funny.

I would have replied with something snarky, but that was when we heard the shriek. It was the scariest thing I've heard, and I've heard ghost stories from Mr. Klaki. Those are freakin' terrifying. This was worse. This was like the cry of a million Banshees amplified through a huge audicite crystal. If you don't know what that is, it's this special mineral that can transmit sound throughout its entire crystal structure, even when pieces are taken away. Now picture the haunting wail of an army of Banshees through a giant one of those. That's the closest I can come to describing the scream from the depths of the Maze.

"OHH, SHIT!" Levi yelled from his roiling position on Dhole's back. Hiccup glanced over at me and probably saw my terrified face, because his soon contorted into one of his own.

"MIMIC QUEEN!" I informed him over the sound of their feet clattering against the cave walls and floor and ceiling behind us. Slowly, somewhat against my will, I turned around to see her. A massive, female Mimic, the Queen is the only one that can produce fertile children out of her whole hive. This one looked like, at one point in her life, she might have been a somewhat large treasure chest. Not anymore. We could see just how big she was as she slowly rose from the gargantuan crevice that had been hidden by the shadows of the cave.

The pieces of her disguise no longer looked like dark wood and yellow metal. Instead, glowing fungus and spots of color had completely overgrown the armor, making her light up the entire chamber with soft blue, green, and yellow. Her red eyes were like giant glass lanterns seeking us out, and when their cruel beams caught us like the searchlights of a prison in the Blasted Lands, they narrowed in anger at the thought of her prey escaping. The Queen was easily the size of an entire wing of the palace in Faded Dreams, and though her wings could no longer support her, she would have no trouble catching us if we went airborne.

Well, that settled it. We were screwed. Mimics were starting to cut us off, and the Mimic Queen herself had decided to join the hunt instead of letting her minions bring our paralyzed bodies to her. There was no way to escape.

* * *

 **Author's Notes: DUN DUN DUN!**

 **I'm an awful person to leave it at a cliffhanger, but I can't help it. Big things are coming up. I needed to end the chapter somewhere.**

 **Please review! I like feedback of any kind! No, seriously. Any kind of feedback is welcome.**

 **Wild Cat 214, out! *flies off to escape angry readers***


	2. Chapter 2

_**Chapter 2: Side Effects**_

 **Author's Notes: This chapter is going to be mostly Hiccup's point of view, because a lot of important things happen involving him, but I add a little bit in as myself. Just to spice it up.  
**

 **Reviews:**

 **mc arno (Chapter 1, Apr. 10) - Merci!**

 **The Story Of Your Life (Chapter 1, Apr. 11) - My brother has watched some of the Librarians, so I kinda know what you're talking about. Unfortunately for them, our heroes and heroines must face quite a bit, especially in this chapter ;)**

 **understandalone (Episode 1, Chapter 10, Apr. 11) - You'll just have to wait and see. And no, Cog won't fall for Levi. But someone else will :P There will be more fluff, just not yet. I have plans within plans, a veritable web of ideas that are linked together, and there will be some fluff tangled up in there. Thanks for liking my stories! I like them, too.**

 **Disclaimer: HTTYD is not mine.**

 **Key:**

 **0*0*0 – scene change**

 **Horizontal line – perspective change**

* * *

Hiccup looked around rapidly, searching, hoping that there might be some way to escape the horde of Mimics. There was nothing. Above them, they could hear the buzzing of filmy wings. Around them, they could see a sea of red dots stretched out around them, slowly lit up by the Queen's bioluminescence to reveal the undulating insects closing in. The clatter of sharp feet against hard stone and the incessant humming combined into an unpleasant drone that stuck with him.

It seemed the intrepid heroes had already met their doom just hours into their adventure. What kind of a story is that?!

Luckily, that was when life took a turn for the better.

* * *

 _ **A quick word from the author...**_

 **It seemed that the sound of the hive and the rise of the Queen had convinced a few of the larger monsters of the caverns to arrive in search of a meal. Mimic camouflage didn't just help them catch human prey. It kept monsters from eating them, thinking they were just another of the strange constructs of the humanoid races. The insects were very tasty to some of the larger creatures, such as Abyss Worms, Crawlers, and the huge flocks of Abysteels that called the Maze of Myst home.**

* * *

It was a giant worm that saved them. Tough, dark gray skin speckled with white kept the Mimics from stinging it, and even the Queen began to retreat back into her nest when she saw it.

"What is that?!" Cog shouted hysterically. Levi laughed and patted Dhole's head, and the Seraph started to hover in the air.

"An Abyss Worm! The earth gods must like us!" he replied brightly, just before the Worm turned to look at them with its tiny, milky eyes. Their faces fell when they saw the puny amount of Mimics in its mouth.

"Okay, maybe not..." he amended. The Abyss Worm reared back to take a bite out of them, Snow, Ash, and Toothless jumped into the air – avoiding the hard, chitinous mouth that crashed down – and they flew after the ousted prince with the Worm in pursuit.

0*0*0

When they flew toward a bright light at the end of one tunnel, Hiccup breathed a sigh of relief. If he had learned anything about worms during the few fishing trips he had gone on with his father, it was that they didn't like the sun. Moments before it could snatch Toothless and Hiccup in its beak, they shot out into what looked like a deep gash in the earth just above a natural bridge of rock that connected the tunnel they had just exited to another on the opposite side. The Worm let out a deep shriek of frustration as it came to a stop just out of reach of the light, then slowly turned its ponderous mass around and went back into the tunnel.

"We made it! Thank the earth gods we found this Chasm Bridge," Levi sighed, flopping back onto the furry monster he was sitting on. Dhole, Snow, Ash, and Toothless all set down on the stone bridge, and Hiccup got off to take a good look around. Silver fog was pouring down like water from the top, obscuring most of the bottomless canyon they were in, and if he looked down, all he could see was darkness.

"What is this place?" he whispered, in awe of the strange terrain. Cog joined him and put an elbow on his shoulder, pointing at the top.

"This is why this region is called the Fractured Lands. No other part of the world has deep chasms like this but here. The earth gods created them so that Myst could go back into the ground after it's used and be replenished by the gods. The Maze is connected to its various parts by way of these Chasm Bridges, like this one, and that's how we're gonna get to the Spire of Heaven," she explained quietly. The white-haired girl was about to walk away and leave him to his thoughts, but stopped and turned just enough to look him in the eye.

"Don't fall. No one knows how deep these are but the gods themselves," she said gravely. He took a few steps back from the edge and watched her walk up to Levi.

"Hey, prince. Do you think you can scout out where we are on Dhole? Darksoul knows what Hiccup and I ride and look like, but he doesn't know you're with us. You'll be fine... probably," she asked, pointing to the top of the chasm. The young man rolled his eyes, mounted his bond animal, and shot up into the open air.

At the same time, Hiccup felt a stab of pain in his arm and looked at it. The green sleeve had a large slash in it, and the scratch revealed by the hole was red and oozing. Cog heard him and came over, then winced at the sight of the wound.

"Ooo, you were hit, huh? Looks like you got nicked by a Mimic. At least you weren't stung. You wouldn't have been able to move, otherwise," she said, doing her best to not look at the injury as she pulled out some bandages and a tiny pot of some sort of ointment.

"Basic first aid kit. It's just disinfectant, but it'll help keep it from being infected," the girl told him before shoving them into his hands and moving to the other side of the bridge. He stared after her with a mixture of confusion and surprise, then settled down to applying the green gel in the jar and wrapping some of the strips of cloth around the scratch. It wasn't deep, thank the gods, but it still hurt when he worked the gel into the area. If left unattended, it might have turned serious.

When he was done, Hiccup went over and sat beside the white-haired girl, who was busy undoing the clasps on her battered armor and setting the pieces aside.

"Uh, Cog, you okay? You seemed kinda queasy back there," he asked, remembering the green tint to her face when she saw the injury. The girl looked him steadily in the eye, never letting her gaze move, then went back to taking off the armor silently.

"Cog?"

Levi and Dhole returned at that time, and Hiccup told him about Cog's weird behavior. The man chuckled and looked at the teenage girl, asking her if she was afraid of blood. She blushed and shook her head, simply saying that she didn't like seeing injuries because it reminded her of her adoptive father's wounds. They were silent after that admission, but then Levi, to change the subject, told them that they had, against all odds, managed to find the Chasm Bridge that would take them to the Land of the Rejected, where the Spire of Heaven challenged the skies and the Library waited. But it was getting late, and it would be dangerous to travel through the Maze at night. Deadlier monsters came out to play at night in large numbers, worse than the Mimics and the Abyss Worm. The Bridge would be safe, as long as they set up Cog's anolite stands (she had four, saying that she had planned on exploring other lands in search of her bond animal and would have needed plenty of light to ward off monsters) and stayed in the middle of the rock spanning the gap. The creatures of the night hated light – for obvious reasons – and would leave them be while they slept.

"Everyone, get some rest. We've still got a ways to go before we're clear of the Maze. Darksoul's men might be looking for us even now, so we should take shifts. I'll take the first watch. Cog, you'll go after, and Hiccup, you'll be next. When you feel like a few hours have passed, wake the next person up. When your shift is done, Hiccup, wake me up and we'll start it over again. Got it?" Levi said firmly. The two teenagers nodded and laid down next to their dragons. At first, Cog was uncomfortable lying next to Snow and Ash, but the two dragons soon started crooning gently and curled up around her, supporting her body with their wings and tail. Soon enough, the girl was asleep (they could tell because she was breathing slowly and steadily), leaving Levi and Hiccup awake.

"Wow, she's out like a rock, isn't she?" the older man joked before sitting at one end of the set of lights, nodding briefly to the teenage boy as he went. Hiccup chuckled and leaned against Toothless' side, hoping he would get some sleep in this strange place.

0*0*0

 _The only way to describe Hiccup's dream was eerie. He was in Berk, and it was like it always had been, the villagers going about their business as usual – except no one seemed to mind the dragons that were also around. Deadly Nadders, Gronckles, Monstrous Nightmares, Hideous Zipplebacks, even Terrible Terrors were everywhere, and some of the Berkians seemed downright pleased to see them. It was so strange, compared to what he had seen of Berk just before leaving._

 _"_ _Hiccup, there you are!" his father's voice rang out from behind him. Startled, he turned, only to see Stoick walking up to him and Toothless. There was something different about himself, though. What was it?_

 _That was it! His left leg was now a prosthetic! When had that happened? When had all this happened? Why was he here, seeing this?_

 _"_ _Hiccup, I need you to take the rest of the Academy out to find that rogue dragon that's been attacking ships. Be careful. All of the people who return say it's a tricky beast, and that it's not like anything in the Book of Dragons," his father ordered gently. Stoick the Vast, gentle? What sort of crazy world was this? Had the Myst driven him insane?_

 _Other-him nodded and got onto the other-Toothless, who had a red tail fin with a white skull on it. What was that about? His mind reeled with questions, even as he watched the other-him and other-dragon fly off with what looked like a Nadder, a Gronckle, a Monstrous Nightmare, and a Zippleback... with other riders! Not to mention, those were the dragons from the arena._

'What's going on?' he thought bemusedly.

 _Before he could see any more, the scene shifted to that of a strange campsite hidden from the sky by boughs woven together into a pavilion, of sorts. A crowd of maybe twenty people was gathered around a bonfire in the center of a group of tents, all in strange gray, red, and black leather armor with Sigils sewn onto the backs. Hanging from their waists were helmets with stylized wings on the side where the ears would have been, but though he couldn't see their faces clearly, he had the strangest feeling he should know them. A young woman came up to him, her face masked by a leather helmet, but she also had some sort of emblem on her shoulder pads that no one else wore. It looked like the symbol emblazoned above strange writing on banners scattered throughout the area, the same wing design as those on the crowd's helmets, but it had a red core instead of black._

 _"_ _Are you ready, Hiccup? This is the final battle. There will be no second chances," she asked affectionately after she hugged him tightly. Her voice was muffled by the leather, but it was very familiar. She reached up to pull off her helmet, and right when he was about to see her face..._

 _He woke up to the sound of screams._

0*0*0

"Hiccup! Get up!" Cog shouted desperately, terror lacing her voice like poison in that weird drink Darksoul liked. Wine, was it called? He hadn't liked it very much because of its weird flavor, but the _Jarl_ had seemed to like it. Maybe you just had to acquire a taste for it.

"HICCUP! GET OUT OF THE WAY!" Levi roared, and that did it. Hiccup shot upright, sleep long forgotten, and barely managed to roll away from his resting place to avoid something horrifying. It was like someone had combined a mouse and a centipede into a freaky, giant, two-headed monstrosity. The eight black, angular legs of the arthropod were completely at odds with its furry, gray body, and the compound eyes and sharp mandibles jutting out of what otherwise looked like a giant mouse head were even worse. Two long antennae flicked around on each head, detecting the others who were fighting it and making it send its tail their way. The necks were like the bodies of two centipedes, with red-violet chitin and small black "legs" sticking out of the sides. More plates of this chitin ran down its back to its mousy tail, which was tipped with two stingers like the Mimics. It was, in essence, the fever dream of some crazed god of vermin.

"Toothless!" Hiccup shouted. The Night Fury dashed over and allowed his rider to get on before shooting up into the sky. Now faced with three powerful monsters, the monstrosity seemed to reconsider attacking them and fled deeper into the abyss, leaving them to take a breather and recuperate.

"What... what was that thing?" he asked the others, who seemed just as upset as he did. Levi was panting with overexertion, so Cog filled him in as usual, though she was also winded.

"That, Hiccup, (pant, pant) was a Centouse. I've (gasp) never seen (wheeze) one that big. Usually they only (deep breath) grow to the size of a small rat, but that's in cities. They might grow bigger here because of the Myst," she explained brokenly. He nodded, stood up, and looked around. It was still night, but the sky above had gone from a dark, steely gray to a lighter shade of fog. Morning was coming.

"Think we should pack up and keep going?" he suggested quietly. The others nodded silently, still trying to recover. Hiccup felt bad that he hadn't been much help, but that dream... what had happened to Berk? And who was that woman? She obviously knew him, and he knew her, but he had no clue who she was right now.

As a way to make up his lack of aid during the fight, he chose to gather up the anolite stands and put them in Cog's pack for her, making sure they didn't crush anything important, like the weird round thing Cog called a compass (it was supposed to point north, but the world had been crazy since the Catastrophe, and so it was unreliable half the time) or the map. Definitely shouldn't crush the map.

He noticed that they had all sustained some injuries, and so Hiccup went around applying the disinfectant and bandages for them. Cog adamantly refused to look at any of her injuries until they were covered with the white cloth, so Nuts had to help him find each and every one. She had a few bruises, cuts, and scratches, but nothing was broken or fractured, so she would be all right. Levi was much the same, only he was more cooperative with the teenage boy's efforts. The bond animals had the least amount of wounds, because they were tougher and had scales or, in Dhole's case, fur that was surprisingly resistant to attack, though Nuts had a large gash in his side from a stray attack by the tail. That was bandaged swiftly, and the Claptrap chirped in gratitude and slithered down into the safety of his partner's armor.

Once they had all regained their strength, the seven of them (or was it eight? Did Snow and Ash count as two separate entities, even though they had one body?) set off into the next part of the Maze, praying that they would survive to see the Library.

* * *

A flash of yellow sped by the tunnel entrance and up the canyon. It looked like a tiny hummingbird, only it seemed to be made of pure gold with ruby eyes. It had watched them during the entire battle, transmitting data to its mistress in her citadel.

" _ **They are safe. I only hope Deorca wasn't the one who set that Centouse on them,**_ " she murmured worriedly, leaning back in her seat. Golden light surrounded her in the strange room filled with giant bubbles of light. In each one, a different person was shown. One was a girl with short, curly brown hair, blue-gray eyes, and a light blue star tattooed over her right eye. Another was a girl with long, pointed ears, black hair with pink streaks in it, and pale blue eyes. Next to her was a boy who also had long ears and pale blue eyes, but his hair was black with light blue streaks in it. Yet another showed a girl with long, silvery hair pulled back in a ponytail and violet eyes. One glowing sphere near the girl and boy showed a young woman with silver-gray hair, cat ears, and yellow cat eyes. Most of the bubbles had images of young women inside, each with different faces, hair, and eyes, but there was one thing they had in common. Each was a Guardian, one of _her_ Guardians, or was an ally of the Guardians that needed protection.

At the farthest end was a bubble showing a young woman with black hair that faded to white and crimson eyes. Her face changed slightly, and sometimes she had long ears or was replaced by a black and white dragon with red eyes, but it was clearly different versions of the same woman. It was to this that Lucia went, gently placing her hand on the woman's face.

" _ **Luna, you know what to do,**_ " she whispered softly as it changed to show one version of the woman standing next to the black and white dragon. Luna turned to speak with someone offscreen and revealed her black and white Sigil, showing that this one, at least, was in the Fractured Lands.

" _ **Keep Cog safe. Make sure Deorca doesn't destroy her, and Darksoul doesn't kill her. We need our Guardian of Happiness.**_ "

* * *

 **Author's Notes: The Centouse is a creature of my own creation, not based off any monster from a game, movie, book, etc. Can't you tell by how messed-up it is? It is a centipede-mouse hybrid that I came up with in eighth grade during Spanish class, mostly because that was the sort of thing I did back then. I made a lot of hybrids, like the peaket (peacock-cricket), the phoedracorn (phoenix-dragon-unicorn), and the rupoler (ruby-hippo-sunflower. Don't ask. I did it for a friend). Ah, good times.**

 **Yeah, I'm a little on the weird side, in case you couldn't tell. But that's what makes me fun!**

 **As always, please review! I like it when people leave comments. It makes me happy :)**

 **Wild Cat 214, out!**


	3. Chapter 3

**_Chapter 3: The "Curse" of the Library_**

 **Author's Notes:**

 **Reviews:**

 **mc arno (Apr. 16, Chapter 2) – Merci! Les gardiens sont trés important, et leur histoire sera racontée bientôt. Juste pas encore.**

 **The Story Of Your Life (Apr. 17, Chapter 2) – Oh, yes, it's foreshadowing... for around episode 14 or 15 :P I'm willing to bet you're right on one of those counts. Eh-heh :3**

 **Disclaimer: HTTYD is not mine.**

 **Key:**

 **0*0*0 – scene change**

 **Horizontal line – perspective change**

* * *

I'm not gonna go into much detail over what happened in the next part of the Maze. Suffice it to say, I will never see fluffy bunnies the same ever again.

There really are no words to describe how happy we were to stumble out of the accursed depths of the Maze of Myst. Every bone in my body ached, Hiccup seemed to have gotten thinner – if that was possible – and even Levi seemed gaunter. And that's not mentioning the state of the various bond animals. Toothless seemed perfectly happy to spend the rest of his life outside of the Maze, Snow and Ash were quietly grumbling and sending poisonous glares at the tunnel we emerged from, Dhole growled deep in his throat whenever someone said the word "skeleton," and Nuts was just curled up in a pocket of my apron, trying to get some much-needed sleep.

The sun was past its zenith as we slowly clambered out of the dark caverns, and I let out a deep sigh of relief.

"I am never going in there again, not even if you paid me," I swore emphatically. The others nodded, and, as if in a trance, we all turned to see our target. The Spire of Heaven loomed over us, a tall, narrow peak of stone that housed the largest library anywhere. Some said it was cursed, that no one ever left it, and yet that begged the question of how they knew it was cursed. Maybe no one wanted to leave. Yeah, that must have been it. No one wanted to go.

"Well, we're nearly there. The Librarian should be able to help. She's supposed to be the wisest being in all the Fractured Lands, and some say, the world," Levi replied, doing his best to cheer us up. Hiccup and I shared a look, then turned our gazes back to the Spire. Even now, in the light of late afternoon, it had a fascinating quality to it that made one feel tiny and insignificant in the face of so much history and knowledge.

"Let's go, then. I'd rather not be captured by Darksoul now, after all we've been through," Hiccup said wearily. We all nodded and started the long walk to the Library.

0*0*0

The door of the Library was set at ground level, right in the base of the peak, and it was made of solid bronze and steel. Whatever else, it was clear that the books in the Library were valuable enough to warrant such defense. The two Gargoyles flanking the imposing entrance helped with that impression. I went up to one and gently scratched behind its ear, murmuring gentle words that told it we were no harm, and then joined the others. Hiccup gave me a funny look when he saw me with the Gargoyle, but I ignored it. Even living statues need some lovin' every so often.

Levi lifted the heavy brass knocker and banged it against the metal door several times, then stepped back and waited. My feet were killing me, and I was just about ready to break down the door myself when it swung open to the inside just a crack. One eye peered out at us from the musty darkness sealed within, the piercing blue staring right into my soul.

"Who dares entreat admission to the Library of the Spire of Heaven?" the voice of a grouchy old woman said with surprising strength from the crack. I glanced between Hiccup and Levi, and they looked at each other, and finally I decided to speak.

"If you are the Librarian, we wish to use the Library for knowledge and aid in our mission," I explained formally, bowing slightly. The old woman grunted with jaded amusement.

"I haven't had any visitors in a long time. What's your mission?" she asked grumpily. Levi chose to talk this time.

"We have come regarding Xavier Darksoul. I am Levi, and these are my friends, Hiccup and Cog," he said firmly, not letting any nervousness he might be feeling show. At the mention of our names, the eye I could see narrowed, and she was silent.

"...Very well. Come in. I'll tell Teresa to prepare some food and tea for the guests," the old woman said at last. The doors swung open to reveal a handsome, elderly lady in formal blue and gold robes, her silver hair pulled back in a severe bun and a pair of thick spectacles perched on her nose. She was the epitome of the ancient librarian, except for the fierce, attentive gleam in her eyes.

"My name is Lola Goldweave. Welcome to the Library," she greeted us, allowing me, Hiccup, Levi, Toothless, Nuts, Snow and Ash, and Dhole entrance to the Spire of Heaven.

0*0*0

If I had to choose one word to describe Lola, it's resilient. She may look like she's pushing seventy, but the old lady moves like a woman a quarter of that age. She would have to, if she were to get up and down those stairs so quickly. Of course, if it weren't for the steam lift that awaited us on the tenth landing, I doubt we would have been able to climb the entire Spire that day. Or that week. Still, that's ten floors' worth of steps up, and I know I'm not the only one who was glad we got to the elevator when we did. Even Dhole looked like he was getting tired, and he's a Seraph. They're renowned throughout the world as being full of stamina.

The trip up wasn't very exciting, but I was able to answer a few of Hiccup's questions involving the Library. It's an ancient structure built not long after the Catastrophe, made inside the hollowed-out Spire of Heaven, and later, near the top, built outside as well. Inside reside copies or originals of basically every book, scroll, pamphlet, stone tablet, and magazine in the world. If you want to know exactly who was the _Jarl_ of the Land of the Abandoned during the war between Faded Dreams and Forgotten Wishes, or the names of the old gods before the Catastrophe, or even the best recipe for making spiced mead for a party, this is the place to go.

This was where we would find out more about who I was, what it meant to be a Skellurdreki, and where Berk was. Okay, that last part was a fairly recent addition to my list of knowledge-to-be-learned, but I just knew I had heard the name Berk somewhere before, and I wanted to pin it down before I completely lost it. I never forget the name of a place that easily. It was one of the reasons why I had excelled at geography, and why I knew exactly how to avoid guards in Faded Dreams. That, and my sense of direction is nearly impeccable. As long as I'm aboveground, in a place that doesn't make me feel claustrophobic. I'm not even afraid of tight places, normally, but the Maze could have made me if I had stayed there any longer.

"We're here," Lola announced, breaking into my thoughts as the lift began slowing down and my ears begged to be popped. I yawned, doing my best to ease the ache in my poor ears, and looked around with awe at the scene revealed.

Shelves and shelves of things stretched on around us, curving to match the circular shape of the Spire. In a glass display case near us, a few interesting swords were set up on small racks, the blades curving up at the tips. Probably weapons from the Submerged Lands. The warriors of that marshy collection of nations used swords like that. I had read about it once, when I was really bored.

"Well, it certainly doesn't look cursed," Hiccup remarked once the initial shock wore off. Lola snorted and started walking toward the center, where a red dragon with ivy-like antennae, fan-shaped wings, and a pointed, silver-tinged snout with two large horns was waiting near a steam-powered stove. It growled curiously when it saw us, and when I noticed the red crystal on the bottom of Lola's Sigil, I guessed this was Teresa. The two Gargoyles downstairs must have also been bonded to her, going by the two gray crystals on the backs of her hands. They were minor bond marks, but she was still connected to them.

"Nonsense. The Library has never been cursed. That's just some hogwash that idiot Darksoul has come up with to keep people away. Tea?" she replied, holding up a small tin of what must have been tea leaves from the Land of the Sorrowful. I nodded gratefully, as did Hiccup and Levi. Water was all fine and dandy, but spending several hours in a twisting labyrinth full of monsters required something a bit stronger.

We all sat down on the chairs and couch that awaited us in the middle of the Library, and watched curiously as she and the dragon started preparing the tea. Hiccup nudged me with his elbow and indicated the dragon.

"I've never seen a dragon like that. What is it?" he asked interestedly. I racked my brain to remember.

"I think Teresa's a Changewing. They can shift the color of their scales to blend in with their background, and they usually hunt in packs, like wolves. They spit acid, too," I explained, looking at the dragon in question. She seemed a bit more friendly than what I had heard of her species, but maybe that was just because they hadn't had much company.

"So, what brings the true ruler of the Land of the Faded, a boy riding a dragon not seen in years, and one of the last members of the Winterstorm family to the Library?" Lola finally asked, after the tea was ready and she handed it out. I nearly choked on my drink, but Hiccup helped me with not dying as we looked at her in shock.

"W-what?" my friend asked warily. It seems this old woman was sharper than she seemed. But what had she meant by that?

"Um, there must be some mistake. I'm not a real Winterstorm," I said, thinking she might not be all there. The old woman chuckled humorlessly.

"Please. I know the signs of the Winterstorm family. That hair, those eyes, and the fact that you seem to be bonded to a certain Skellurdreki that went into crystal stasis one hundred and fifty years ago? You, my dear, are Cog Winterstorm, daughter of Gear Winterstorm and Arrow Winterstorm-Pearlbood. I know all about how you came to be in this time." Everyone looked at me in surprise. Shock had me rooted to my seat, trying to make sense of this. I really was a Winterstorm? I was the lost daughter of the most notorious couple in that era?

"How I came to be in this time?" I echoed breathlessly. This was way too much for my head.

"Yes. You... and your sister," she replied cryptically.

* * *

 **Author's Notes: *Cue sound of glass breaking***

 **Yeah, you weren't expecting that, were you? Well, maybe you were. I did kinda hint at it in the last episode, and with the title of this one. But you probably didn't think she had a sister!**

 **You're probably wondering how she came to be in this time, and I'll tell you right now, the method will be revealed later. Until then, you'll just have to wait and see.**

 **Anyways, please review! I love feedback of any sort, and I will cherish every word you give me, even the not-so-kind ones. They will forever be ensconced in my heart.**

 **Wild Cat 214, out!**


	4. Chapter 4

_**Chapter 4: The Wintry Truth**_

 **Author's Notes: Okay, firstly, I'd like to apologize for the late update. I got caught up in writing other stories, and handling finals (which I'm pretty sure I did well on), and knitting a 4** **th** **Doctor scarf (the Season 14 Acheson Hero scarf), and... well, you get the idea. Secondly, I'm BACK! Thirdly... there is no third thing, just that I'm happy to be back on the fic!**

 **I guess that would count as a third thing, huh?**

 **Oh! Fourthly, I got a new laptop! It has a whole bunch of electronic card games, which is fun, but it doesn't have Space Pinball, which is not.**

 **I really like that game. I once got about 4 million points in it... or was it 7 million? I can't really remember, but it was a lot higher than I normally get!**

 **Anyways, in this chapter, we get to learn more about this sudden development in Cog's family life! And about her family in general! And about Lola, because she's awesome. When I get old, I want to be just like her.**

 **Okay, maybe not** ** _just_** **like her, but pretty darn close.**

 **Reviews:**

 **mc arno (Apr. 26, Chapter 3) – Mais oui! If it's all right with you, I'm going to answer in English, because my French isn't good enough to say it clearly. I really wanted to have a character named Cog in a story set in a steampunk world like this, and I just drew Snow and Ash randomly, and somehow my head connected them. After that, How To Train Your Dragon got involved, and the rest is history.**

 **Now that I think about it, that's a really stupid reason to come up with a story *sweat drop***

 **The Story Of Your Life (May 3, Chapter 3) – It's okay! I was actually thinking about messaging you to see if you were still alive-I mean, okay, but then you reviewed, and all was well. Oh, yes, Cog has a sister. I didn't realize it was** ** _that_** **unexpected, but if you say so. As to the presence of the canon dragon species, I kinda needed to put them in, since what I have planned needs the dragons, but I can't tell you any more than that. You'll see what I mean in episode 3 :P**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own HTTYD. I just write stories.**

 **Key:**

 **0*0*0 – scene change**

 **Horizontal line – perspective change**

* * *

"...I-I have a sister?" I stammered. Lola nodded once and sipped more of her tea. "A twin sister, to be exact. You look almost exactly like her."

Her nonchalant manner clashed with the revelation I had just received. A sister? Me? And she was my twin? And our parents died a hundred and fifty years ago?

What?

"But... but how? How could I have a sister? How could I be a real Winterstorm?" I asked disbelievingly. The old woman put her teacup down and looked me in the eye, her otherworldly blue eyes proving that she was dead serious about what she had just said.

"It's somewhat my fault. I was the one who told Arrow and Gear about the Gate, and that they and their twin daughters would be next on the hit list of the Blackstone family. I told them how to find it, and what coordinates to use, and everything else they would need to save you and Bolt. I never expected them to actually entrust your sister to my care," Lola explained guiltily. I looked at Hiccup, who seemed just as confused as I did, and then at Levi, who seemed mainly thoughtful. When I turned back to Lola, she was staring at the tea on the table in front of her, her eyes misty and unfocused. Almost as if she was remembering the day my sister came to her.

"Uh, Lola, what's the Gate?" Hiccup asked bemusedly. She smiled tightly and shook her head. "A very powerful artifact created by the elemental gods at the beginning of the Before-Time, with the help of the old gods. It allows people to travel to different times, though it has been many years since someone last used it. That was Arrow, delivering you and your sister to this time."

"Whoa... these elemental gods must be pretty powerful," he remarked. I shrugged. That was definitely an understatement. Now that I had known Hiccup for a lot longer, I knew he wasn't just saying that, though. He really didn't know who the elemental gods were.

"Well, they did preserve humanity and reshape the world after the Catastrophe, since the old gods left and did nothing to help. Without them, we wouldn't be talking right now," came my casual reply. That made Hiccup mutter to himself about something I couldn't quite catch, so I looked intently at the old Librarian. Now, how could she have known my parents that long ago, when she didn't seem to be a day over seventy?

"Anyways, Lola, you don't look like you're a hundred and fifty years old," I commented adroitly. This should clear that whole confusion up. She smirked and began patting her bun proudly.

"Oh, I'm not. I'm over five hundred."

That shut everyone up for about four minutes as our heads processed what she had just stated. When we were done, the entire room erupted in shocked questions.

"You can't be over five hundred! How is that possible?"

"Why do you look so young?"

"Why do trolls steal the left sock only?"

At this query from Hiccup, the three humans and five (six? Do Snow and Ash count as separate beings?) monsters all stared at him, and he blushed bright pink. "What? I've always wanted to know, and Lola seems to be the best source for the answer."

The rest of us brushed this explanation aside and turned back to the old Librarian looking at us smugly.

"You really want to know? Fine. It's partially a Magic I get from Teresa, since she's a dragon and they typically have very long lifespans, and partially because I was there during the Catastrophe and I withstood the massive influx of Myst that accompanied it. Not _there_ there, but I was alive at the time, I mean. My village was near the edge of the initial apocalyptic blast, so we were able to escape fairly easily, especially with our own natural benefits. Those living closer to the epicenter, however, were not so lucky. Thankfully, some of them were at a yearly gathering that was situated at about the same distance as my village, so they were able to survive. With the help of the elemental gods, of course." She winked at us, then sobered up quickly. "Those people ended up settling here, in the Fractured Lands, as did my people, and founded the first families of these parts. Of course, this was after the Catastrophe, which lasted for a few truly hellish years, but by then the effects were tapering off and people could live in peace. They had to deal with monsters and Myst now, but they were alive, and they quickly learned to adapt to the new world. We're not as few as we used to be."

Hiccup nodded, and I could tell he was taking the chance to absorb as much knowledge as he could. This was all review for me, for the most part, but hearing about it from someone who had experienced it firsthand is different than reading it in a history book with an entire classroom of children. I could see just how tragic it had been, going by the mixed look of sadness and bitterness on Lola's face. She had probably lost people she cared about during the Catastrophe.

"And Hiccup, if you want to know about Trolls, there's a book on human-like races in the H section, over there. Look for _Humanoid Species of the World_." Lola cleared her throat before continuing.

"But back to the matter at hand. Cog, I'm truly sorry to say this, but I sent your sister to the Land of the Old Gods a few days ago, with a Kokatolis of hers named Joan. She's looking for a very precious artifact that my village left behind during the Catastrophe, when we fled south and were rescued by the sky gods. I think she'll be back in about a week, if all goes well, and then you two can have a family reunion," Lola told me with a cheerful grin. I nodded sadly, using this chance to focus on what having a real family meant for me. If I couldn't speak to my sister in person, then I'd just have to make do with talking to someone who knew my parents and the rest of the Winterstorms.

"I understand. In that case, can you tell me what happened to my parents? I never really got to learn about them at the Academy," I admitted wistfully. She smiled kindly and looked at Hiccup and Levi.

"Do you two want to know, as well? This is important history, you know," the old Librarian asked wryly. Hiccup nodded eagerly, and Levi seemed irritated, for a brief moment, then nodded resignedly.

* * *

The Winterstorms had once been the prominent monster training family of the Land of the Faded, one of eight in the entire Fractured Lands. The other seven were the Pearlbloods of the Land of the Strayed, the Blackstones of the Land of the Forgotten, the Heartwoods of the Land of the Broken, the Darkleafs of the Land of the Squandered, the Gildharps of the Land of the Lost, the Starfrosts of the Land of the Abandoned, and the Goldweaves of the Land of the Rejected. ("I'm the ancestor of many wealthy monster tamers," Lola declared proudly, at this point.) It was said they were the best in the Fractured Lands, and, some claimed, the world.

That hadn't sat well with the Blackstones, who didn't like being second fiddle to what they considered the family that didn't deserve that revered title. They had gone to the _Jarl_ of Forgotten Wishes, the capital of that land, and had demanded the heads of every member of that family. _Jarl_ Yellowbloom, a weak-minded man who depended on the Blackstones for everything, from trade decisions to party planning, agreed instantly to their demands and declared war on the Land of the Faded, stating that the forces of the Land of the Forgotten would not stop their attack until every last Winterstorm was dead.

One by one, the Winterstorms fell, though not because of poor skills. They were simply overwhelmed, they and their bonded monsters. It was almost laughable how many soldiers, hunters, and monsters were pitted against this one family. And it was a big one, since the Winterstorms weren't just said to be the best monster tamers. Some people said they were the most prolific when it came to children, and indeed, many Winterstorm children had at least three siblings, including twins and triplets.

Finally only Arrow Winterstorm-Pearlblood, Gear Winterstorm, and their twin daughters, Cog and Bolt, had been left. Fearing for their children's lives, Arrow and Gear had gone to Lola for help. She had told them about the Gate and given them what they needed to go through, and had waited a hundred and fifty years for Arrow to give her Bolt – which was actually just him handing Bolt off to a flock of Tarnars and telling them to take her to the Library – just before he had gone to the Academy and put Cog on the steps, knowing that the night guard would come along before she froze to death.

When he had returned to the Faded Dreams of their time, it would be their last night alive. Blackstone assassins had snuck into the city during the last fateful assault, used sleep Myst Magic on them, and slit their throats while they slept, wiping out the Winterstorms alive in that time.

At this point in the tale, Cog seemed a bit uncomfortable, and Hiccup put a hand on her shoulder reassuringly. She put her own hand on top in silent thanks, and when she was ready, Lola continued.

A hundred and fifty years later, the flock of Tarnars sent by Arrow brought her Bolt while the man was delivering Cog to the Academy. On the scorpion tail of one was a message stating that this was Bolt and that Lola should take care of her, signed by Arrow in his messy script. While she was raising Cog's twin sister, the old Librarian also kept tabs on Cog and making sure she was safe, since she was in the city now ruled by Darksoul.

Then, the day before their fifth birthday (which was two days before the day they had arrived in the future), Bolt and Cog had both vanished. After a few hours, Lola finally found Bolt, and the reason for her disappearance. On her back was a Twin Sigil that matched Cog's own major bond mark and the coloration of the dragon that had been sleeping for a hundred and fifty years in the vaults of Faded Dream's palace – at least, until Cog and Bolt arrived in that time, at which point it woke up and escaped into the wild. The two had gone through the Linking Ceremony a day earlier than most people did, and though Lola hadn't realized it at the time, they had shared this Ceremony, as well.

* * *

"Wait. What do you mean, we shared a Linking Ceremony?" Cog asked curiously. Hiccup nodded, emphasizing his interest in the answer, and I simply rolled my eyes and counted to ten. This wasn't why we had come here, damn it!

"You and Bolt bonded to the-"

"ENOUGH! Lola, what is Darksoul planning? Why did he betray my father? And just who is he?" I finally roared, tired of this whole conversation. So what if Cog really was a Winterstorm? So what if she had a twin sister? That wasn't important right now! We needed to know how to defeat that bastard, Darksoul.

The old woman shot me a sour look and huffed out a breath.

"I can see why your father wanted you to go through the Academy before you started training to be the _Jarl_ of the Land of the Faded, Levi Wolfram. Your temper runs too close to the surface," she stated coldly. Cog and Hiccup all gave me hurt looks, and I sighed, hanging my head low. Even the other bond animals seemed upset at my outburst – including Dhole, and Seraphs are known for their tranquil, cool natures. They don't get upset easily.

"I apologize, Lola, Cog, Hiccup. I just want Darksoul to face justice for what he's done to me and my family," I stated, trying to regain my cool. I was so pathetic. Here I was, trying to take back my throne, and I could barely keep my temper through something important to a friend of mine. I wasn't worthy of the throne of Faded Dreams, any more than Darksoul and his spawn were.

Lola smiled gently. "I understand. I, too, want to stop Xavier. I know he's planning something awful." She took a deep breath. "I'll tell you what you need to know. But in return, you must promise that you won't interrupt me again."

I nodded and saluted, pressing my right forearm across my chest and my left forearm across my back in the most respectful motion of the Fractured Lands. "I swear on my family's name."

The old Librarian smirked. "Then listen carefully, and keep your promise. What I'm about to tell you may sound impossible at times, but I swear to the elemental gods it is true."

* * *

 **Author's Notes: Coming up with names for all of the monster taming families was pretty hard, but I think using three names from other HTTYD fics of mine were pretty good. Of course, I haven't published the fic I used a name from yet – I'm thinking of saving it for after I've finished at least one of my longer stories – but it has to do with the silver-haired, purple-eyed girl I mentioned at the end of chapter 2, during the scene with Lucia. Readers of** ** _Frozen Flames_** **will recognize both her and Lady Deorca, if you have read that far.**

 **Anyways, again, I'm sorry about the late update. I'll try to update more regularly.**

 **I wasn't actually sure how to write this chapter, but eventually it came to me. I hope you guys like it :D I know I did, especially that little bit with Hiccup and the trolls. I just needed some sort of non sequitur for him to say, and it seemed perfect, since he's the kind to wonder about that. I mean, he did go fishing with Stoick and looked for trolls instead, so it felt mildly appropriate.**

 **Although, now I want to know how he expected to find the trolls...** **O_o**

 **In the next chapter, we get to learn more about Darksoul AND Lola! WOOT! So please review with any guesses you might have, or questions, or anything! I'm not picky about my reviews!**

 **Wild Cat 214, out!**


	5. Chapter 5

_**Chapter 5: Tantalizing Tales**_

 **Author's Notes: As I told you previously, this is a chapter about Darksoul and Lola! Though it doesn't actually feature any Darksoul (except for a tiny bit that I think you'll find amusing), it's still pretty important backstory for the two of them.**

 **For those of you who have read** ** _Dragon Skin_** **, which is my very first fic published, ever, you may find some of this familiar. Yes, I am drawing from that, though the characters will not be exactly the same, since the events of** ** _Dragon Skin_** **did not happen in this fic. Don't go reading it right now, though. Not only should you keep reading this chapter, but I need to go through and revise it. I was young and impressionable when I wrote it, and in a hotel in Illinois with my extended family. So don't judge me, please. Or if you do, at least keep your judgments to yourself. I'd rather not know.**

 **Reviews:**

 **MMM (May 30, Chapter 4) – Yeah, Lola is pretty old. And I'm not sure where you got that idea, but Hiccup and Lola are definitely not dating. Yeesh. And I can't tell you all the details, but people related to Berk** ** _will_** **show up. Levi may or may not be one of them ;)**

 **mc arno (May 31, Chapter 4) – Merci beaucoup!**

 **The Story Of Your Life (Jun. 3, Chapter 4) – Thanks! They'll be playing a pretty big role, I can tell you that. I haven't heard any of his music, but I'll look him up!**

 **Personally, I think, in terms of emojis, Cog is :D, Hiccup is :), Levi is :/, Lola is ;), and I am :3. Or XD. Or sometimes :P. It varies.**

 **Disclaimer: HTTYD is not mine, sadly. I just do things with the characters.**

 **Key:**

 **0*0*0 – scene change**

 **Horizontal line – perspective change**

* * *

Lola poured us all some more tea, even Nuts – who greedily lapped up his refilled saucer of the warm, golden liquid – before she began talking about Darksoul.

"I've known Darksoul since he was a boy, many, many years ago, in the Before-Time. He may not look it, but he's nearly as old as me. And don't ask me how, because I truly don't know. All I know for sure is that it is certainly not his own power keeping him so youthful."

* * *

At this very moment, Xavier Darksoul sneezed as he sat at his desk. The older-than-he-looks man glanced around suspiciously, wondering just who would dare talk about him at the moment, then sighed and went back to reading reports from his spies, his henchman, his soldiers, and his farmers. Some things were best left alone, in his opinion. Otherwise you'd run out of servants.

* * *

"Tell me, Cog, do you know what dragon skins are?" I nodded and recalled just what my biology teacher had told me about them.

"They're people who have dragons for siblings, 'cause they're both born from eggs. In addition, they can merge bodies with their dragon siblings, and vice versa. I've never actually met one in person, though Kai said he knows one in the Land of the Squandered," I replied, blushing a little when Hiccup shot me a knowing glance at the mention of Kai. Curse him for being so astute.

"That's correct. I was born in the village of the dragon skins, during the Before-Time. Drekis was a beautiful, peaceful village. However, I was not born a dragon skin. I was born a half-skin. Sometimes, for no apparent reason, half-skins are born, humans without dragon siblings, or dragons without human siblings. We're rare, but we're also special. Because of our lack of a dragon sibling, we can more safely visit other villages without fear of them attacking us or our sibling. When a dragon skin loses one of their halves, the pain is excruciating and almost enough to drive you insane, and the grief afterwards is crippling. We would never have to worry about this, though it was lonely at times.

"Darksoul was also born a half-skin. We were close because of this – all half-skins were – but even when he was young, Xavier was... different. He preferred to spend time in dark caves instead of in the fields or the forest, and he hated being near the rest of the village. The other half-skins and I were the only exceptions to his dislike. Around us, he was open and loving, more so than I had ever seen a young boy like him be."

She paused, searching for the right words, and I ate a few of the small sugar cookies that had been prepared about half an hour before we arrived, so she claimed. Whatever. They were delicious and I wanted to devour them all. The only thing holding me back was the fact that the others might not take too kindly to that.

"Perhaps it was because we understood what it was like to be different from everyone else in the village. Whatever the reason, Xavier slowly became broodier and broodier over the years, losing the part of him that enjoyed the sunshine and flowers and simply being with his friends. Eventually, some of us half-skins earned the trust of a few local wild dragons and began bonding to them, and he soon rejected their company, too. I was the last one to do so, and that was to Teresa. Once that happened, he avoided us all, shunning everyone who had once been like him, alone, dragonless, with no one to support him through tough times but other humans."

Hiccup looked away at this, and while I didn't entirely understand why, I patted his shoulder gently. Clearly this idea that Darksoul had been alone as a kid got to him. Maybe it had something to do with what Hiccup had said, about how he betrayed his whole village by befriending their worst enemy. If Berk really had something against dragons, I wasn't sure I wanted to go there. Learn about it, yes, learn where it was, and then use that knowledge to avoid it for the rest of my life.

"He began asking for tasks away from the village, like gathering wood, or fishing, or being an ambassador to other villages. The chief agreed to let him do so, but he was worried. Chief Peter may have been bonded to a Dark Leviathan, but he was a good man, and he treated his wife and daughter with respect."

At this, she began chuckling and pointed at Toothless. The dragon looked up, startled, and hunched down, away from her piercing gaze.

"Belladonna, his wife, was dragon skin to a Night Fury named Nightshade, while their daughter, Aloe, was dragon skin to a Snow Fury named Snowdrop. Not the most creative of names, but they all had good hearts, and Peter loved them so. Why, I remember when Morgana, Peter's mother, would come by and start cooking for them. The entire house smelled terrible for weeks. Remember, you three. Never let a pyromancer do the cooking."

Lola snickered some more, then let it die down as she got back on track. Her once-jolly face shifted to a more severe, grim one. Something bad happened, that much we could tell.

"The last time I saw Darksoul was when he was thirty. He had made some sort of speech to the rest of the village that he was leaving for a place where he wouldn't be the only one without a dragon partner, and then he had simply vanished. I remember the entire village searched high and low for him. We even had some Rumblehorns and Nadders try to track him, but when we did, they led us to an immensely deep hole in the ground."

Lola shuddered at the memory. It must have been a pretty scary hole, to do that to her after so long.

"The Everpit. Our village kept a record of everything that had happened since its founding, but even before then, the Everpit existed. It was said to lead right to the very heart of the world, where great darkness and great light battled to preserve the balance of the world. If one side ever became too powerful, the results would be disastrous when the balance was restored, and so we always made sure that, whenever we dumped offerings there, we sent an equal amount of dark and light.

"From what the dragons were telling us, Xavier had fallen into the Everpit. We all gave him up for dead, since no one could have possibly survived that fall. That was exactly three years before the Catastrophe. I remember because I had commemorated the day in my own personal log, and every anniversary of the date, I went to the Everpit to pray for him.

"Centuries after the Catastrophe ended, near the time of the war between Forgotten Wishes and Faded Dreams, Xavier reappeared in my life. He was older now, but not by much. I asked him how it was possible, but he simply said that he had a very powerful friend who had protected him. That was when he asked me to show him one of Farseer's prophecies. Farseer was a very old, very powerful dragon, a Futurewatcher. He had given my village a prophecy that Darksoul demanded I show him. When I did, he seemed very nervous, but I could not understand why."

"A prophecy? Can we see it?" Levi asked eagerly, leaning forward in his seat. Lola shook her head.

"I will only show you once I myself understand it. Prophecies, especially Farseer's, can be very confusing and full of hidden meanings. But I promise, once I know why Xavier was so concerned about it, you three will be the first to hear. However, I can tell you this. Darksoul wants to rule over all of the Fractured Lands."

My brow furrowed in confusion. Why would he want to do that? Wasn't it enough he was ruler of the very heart of the Fractured Lands, the Land of the Faded? It just didn't make any sense.

"He's always been quite ambitious. Now that he has the power of a _Jarl_ , there is no doubt he'll try to conquer this entire land. I know, because I have sent out spies. They've seen his men and women slowly worming their way into high positions in a few of the other lands. If anyone tries to fight back, they might not survive under that much pressure. That's why I – no, the entire Fractured Lands – need you to stop him." She sighed, then looked us all in the eye, one by one. "Darksoul won't stop until everyone in the Fractured Lands is under his control. It's the only way he'll feel accepted by the world."

"But won't that do the opposite? Forcing people to respect you, even if it's with some sort of Myst Magic, simply makes them fear and hate you," Levi asked, for once showing the wisdom he had possessed in the Maze of Myst. I nodded fervently in agreement, and Hiccup agreed with the man. Lola simply smirked.

"Yes, but he doesn't know that. He's still stuck in the past, when it's the future he should worry about."

* * *

After that, Lola told Hiccup and Cog to go off into the Library to look up what they needed, while she told Levi to stay behind so they could discuss this new mission of ours. It wasn't just about what Darksoul had done to them anymore. It was about what he would do to their entire land if they didn't stop him.

Toothless, Snow, and Ash went outside with Nuts, so they could enjoy the fresh, cool air of the high elevation without having to worry about actually flying and being seen by Darksoul's spies. The balcony seemed large enough, anyways – big enough to house ten of the Skellurdreki easily – so the four humans let them be while Dhole and Teresa stayed indoors with their partners.

Hiccup, meanwhile, followed Cog deeper into the rows of bookshelves, looking at the titles with passing curiosity. The musty scent of old paper and leather, the gleaming golden letters on the spines, the feeling that he was surrounded by history, he loved it. Not as much as Fishlegs would have, oh no, but he was definitely fond of being in the Library. Maybe Berk should have had a bigger library, if it was going to be like this all the time.

 _Abracadabra!, or How to Enchant Your Friends_

 _All-time Crop Highs and Lows_

 _Apple Growing: What You Need to Know for the Best Fruit Around_

 _Around the World in Eighty Days_

 _Attacking for Beginners_

 _Battle for Beginners_

 _Be a Man: The Story of Mulan_

 _Bin of Wonders_

 _Block It! A Sandbox Tale_

 _Block of Mystery, Volume 1_

Finally, they stopped in the B section, close to the middle. Cog squealed joyfully as she pulled out one thick volume and began carrying it over to a convenient wooden table with a large lamp on it, the smoky glass shade filtering the otherwise bright light of an anolite crystal and bathing the area in a warm glow. She set it down with a thump and told him to wait there, moving away to get a few more volumes, and so the young Viking pulled a chair over and examined the book. He didn't want to start without Cog. That might end badly, though probably not too bad. She seemed to reserve her anger for people like Darksoul, who lied to her and took precious things away from her.

In that instant, he was reminded of Astrid. She would hit him if he read without her. Then again, she probably wouldn't be here to hit him. The young shield-maiden would be honing her skills in the arena, or the forest, or somewhere else on the island, not sitting in a dusty Library to read about dragons.

For some reason, that seemed sad to him. The young shield maiden was missing out on so much right now, and she didn't even know it.

"I wonder how Astrid's doing..." he murmured, setting his chin on the polished wood with a soft clunk.

* * *

At that moment, Astrid sneezed just as she was about to climb into her bed. She didn't know why; the young woman hardly ever got sick. But, despite that, she got the strangest feeling that someone was talking about her behind her back, and so she made sure her axe was within easy reach if something came in the night. It was doubtful, given the storm raging outside, but still possible.

* * *

His gaze lazily wandered over the desk, eventually settling on the book Cog had selected with such happiness. There was something weird about the golden letters in the middle, surrounded by stylized dragons that coiled and twisted and wrapped and wove among each other, the rest of the book embellished with small red and blue gems in the corners of the shiny brown leather.

Hiccup took awhile to figure out what was so odd about the cover, when it hit him. He didn't know those letters, and at the same time, he did. He couldn't possibly be able to read them, and yet, the title was staring him right in the face, clear as day.

 _Бøøҗ øψ Δҹдǥøяђ, Ҹэчъђэδ Эδъŧъøя._

 _Book of Dragons, Revised Edition_.

* * *

 **Author's Notes: Oh, yeah, I went there. Why did I go there?** **It's a se-cret!**

 **Okay, enough taunting. Time to get serious. Yes, Darksoul did survive the Everpit, though how he did so will remain a mystery until episode 7. I know, I know, it's a long wait, but you'll be glad you did. Why? Because you'll get to enjoy some wonderful romance, bonding, and hijinks with the cast, that's why!**

 **As to why Hiccup is able to read the above script (which I totally made up using the Insert-Special Character command up in the taskbar of OpenOffice), that will be revealed in episode 4.**

 **I have episode summaries that help me figure out when certain things happen. It's very handy :3**

 **Anyways, despite all these information walls, reviews are welcome! I'll do my best to answer without spoilers! At least, major ones.**

 **Wild Cat 214, out!**


	6. Chapter 6

_**Chapter 6: The Clash**_

 **Author's Notes: Weird stuff, awesome stuff, and platonic stuff is going to happen here! It's gonna be fun! *cocks Sig's Peacemaker and prepares to attack Metal Heads at the Pumping Station***

 **Hold on. Wrong fandom.**

 **But, yeah, it will be fun, funny, and kinda fluffy, though not by much. Just enough that it's similar to Cog's hair. Which, by the way, is pretty poofy.**

 **Also btw, if you're wondering how Cog tests her hair dyes, she does it with the two locks of hair in front of her ears. Which means that, right now, they have a sort of peachy tint to them as a residue of her last test. But make no mistake, her hair is WHITE. As in, snow, or bleached fabric, or Vampyr skin (which, by the way, is most certainly NOT sparkly in this fic), or fresh copy paper.**

 **Okay, I think you guys get it.**

 **Also, I am making a slight change. Instead of Hiccup learning about his strange new ability in episode 4, I have moved it to episode 3. In doing so, I have combined the original episode 4 with 3 and created a new 4. So the total is still 20, it's just that he's learning a bit earlier in the series than before.**

 **Reviews:**

 **The Story Of Your Life (Chapter 5, Jun. 8) – I haven't seen Legend of Korra (though I have heard of it), but I** ** _am_** **an Avatar: The Last Airbender fan, and the light v. dark thing is actually a continuous theme I have going in my fics, which will sort of draw them all together. And I do have something planned for the people of Berk at the end of this episode, if you were wondering. Yes, you spelled it correctly, but sadly, none of the Myst Magics I have planned for Hiccup will be like that. One is kinda similar, but only in that it helps him see in the dark. And he won't get it until a bit later; I haven't decided when. As for the** ** _Book of Dragons_** **, it's mostly the same, with a bunch of extra dragons that I made up and a noticeable lack of "Extremely dangerous. Kill on sight." within its pages.**

 **mc arno (Chapter 5, Jun. 8) – Merci! J'espère que tu t'amuses bien avec ce chapitre.**

 **Disclaimer: HTTYD is not mine. I just mess with stuff.**

 **Key:**

 **0*0*0 – scene change**

 **Horizontal line – perspective change**

* * *

When I got back, Hiccup was staring at the book like it had two heads (which would have definitely been an interesting sight). I gently set the books I had found down – and the small dish of cookies I had snatched before Levi and Lola ate them all – and pulled up the chair next to him.

The sound of the wooden legs against the stone floor jolted him out of whatever shocked reverie the young man was in and made him look at me.

"Cog? How come I can read this?" he asked uncertainly. I shrugged.

"Your parents probably taught you. It's the written form of Panlin, so everyone in the world knows it," I replied nonchalantly, munching on a cookie after I spoke. He shook his head fervently.

"No, I mean, how come _I_ can read it? I don't know these letters, and yet I do at the same time! That's not normal!" Hiccup clarified. I gave him a bemused look.

"How should I know? Remember, I'm the girl who doesn't even know where you came from. I mean, I know _where_ you came from, but I don't know where it is. Besides, I didn't really pay much attention in Language Arts, since it was mostly poetry and really old, boring novels. Once I knew how to read, I was good, in my opinion." My dry remark seemed to settle the issue, though I could sense he was still brimming with questions. You stick with someone through a life-or-death situation like the Maze of Myst, you start recognizing different feelings they have that aren't obvious to the casual observer.

"Now, then, let's get cracking. I want to know more about Snow and Ash," I said gleefully, moving my hand so it was gripping the cover. Just as I was about to open the book, however, I felt a strange tingling, stinging sensation where my Sigil was, and I stopped moving.

When I froze, my face must have tipped Hiccup off that something was wrong, because he looked at me, and then my back.

"Uh, Cog? Your Sigil is glowing, and not in a good way," he commented worriedly. I twisted my head around to detect the gradually brightening red and blue glow coming from my Sigil and stiffened. What was happening?

Furious roars from outside told me exactly what was wrong. Something was happening to Snow and Ash, and my Twin Sigil was responding.

0*0*0

It didn't take us long to find my Skellurdreki. All we did was follow the angry dragon sounds through the labyrinth of bookshelves and _presto!_ Snow and Ash were within our sights. Nuts emitted a high-pitched squeal of terror and took cover within my armor when he saw the two of us, and while Toothless seemed pretty panicked when he bolted towards us, all it took was Hiccup saying soothing words and petting his head to get the Night Fury to calm down.

I did not have such an easy task.

First of all, Snow and Ash decided it wasn't enough just screeching at each other. They brought fire and ice into the mess, and believe me, that was an adventure of itself. It took all of my training from the Academy – and the extra practice I got from gathering ingredients and traveling through the Maze – just to avoid the stray blasts of searing flame and freezing shards that now pockmarked the balcony.

Then, when I finally managed to maneuver my way to their side, they also decided to bring wings and claws into the personal fight. Fortunately for them, they couldn't really hurt the other side, since each controlled about half of the main body (it also left me curious as to who got the tail, but that wasn't a very crucial detail at the moment). Unfortunately for me, they most assuredly could hurt _me_. Again, I was extremely thankful for the fact that, even as a usurper, Darksoul had made sure his soldiers would be excellent fighters. It kept me from being mangled, maimed, mutilated, and otherwise rendered unfit for doing anything requiring movement.

Next, after I jumped onto their back – which was definitely not a walk in the park, let me tell you that – neither Snow and Ash seemed to hear me when I practically ordered them to stop fighting. I think my exact words were, "The two of you will stop this madness, or, so help me, I will turn you over to the dragon hunters!" which I would never actually do, because I hate those guys with a passion and would rather be roasted _and_ frozen alive before I let anyone touch my dragon.

Eventually, Ash actually listened and stopped trying to bite... and burn... and claw... Snow off her own neck. The same could not be said of the other head. Snow still tried to freeze Ash off of her, and while the two of them bickered (Ash did so with a cool head, surprisingly enough, while Snow did so with an exceedingly hot temper. Go figure), I glanced over at Hiccup. He seemed just as confused and scared as I was.

"Uh, Hiccup, do you think you could go get that book and read me the part on Skellurdrekis?" I asked nervously, keeping one hand on the neck plates of each dragon head. It was the best way to keep them from snapping at each other again, at least, until I could find some way to calm them down.

At this moment, I wished really, _really_ , _REALLY_ hard for some dragon nip, or, sky gods willing, two of the flowers of that miraculous plant. Anything to get these two to stop their fight.

Hiccup ran off, Toothless in tow. While he was gone, I just murmured nonsense to my Skellurdreki's two heads, addressing Snow and Ash in turn until they seemed to have settled down enough to simply glare at each other. It didn't make any sense. Not that long ago, they had worked together amazingly, not needing any sort of instruction from me as they fought Darksoul's men and women. Now, they were arguing like a couple of teenagers.

When the boy and dragon duo returned, you have no idea how glad I was to see them with the book. Okay, you can probably guess, but that's not the point. The point is, Hiccup flipped through the pages with minimal gasping and got to the facing pages on my dragon, then began frowning with serious interest.

"Uh, hello? Hiccup? Sitting on a very grouchy dragon right now! Would like to know how to end the grouchiness soon! Preferably within the next few minutes!" I called over exasperatedly – and nervously, since Snow and Ash still seemed ready to go at each others' throats again, and that would just end badly for them. I didn't know if two-headed dragons could survive with one head dead, and I really didn't want to find out for myself.

"Oh, uh, sorry. Here we go... ah! ' _Skellurdrekis, or Clash Dragons, are known to sometimes get into fights within their pair of heads, because of the opposing natures of each one's natural elemental attack. To put an end to any argument or conflict, simply have the bonded partner or a professional monster tamer go to them, press their hands against the snouts of the individual heads, and tell them to_ '... oh, jeez... ' _knock it off._ ' That's professional," Hiccup grumbled, looking up from the book at me. I shrugged.

"Well, blame the author for that. So, I just need to tell them to quit it while holding their noses, huh? Got it." I called the names of my dragon's two heads, and when they turned to glare at me on their back, I carefully stood up on the dusky purple plates and held out my hands. Snow and Ash glanced at each other, red eye meeting red and blue eye meeting blue, then returned their two-toned gazes to me and resignedly pressed their snouts to my hands. The feel of cool armor under my hands was accompanied by a small jolt, the effect of our bond being reasserted among the three of us, and I slowly and quietly muttered, "Knock it off, you two. You should know better than this."

It seemed to get through to them, and gradually Snow and Ash calmed down visibly, their pupils widening to the usual happy width of dragon eyes and their scales returning to their average temperatures. For the record, Ash's scales are colder than Snow's. Don't ask me why.

That actually gave me an idea. I turned back to Hiccup and waved him over.

"Hey, Hiccup. Does this book have anything on how the elements make themselves known in the Skellurdreki?" I asked once he and Toothless joined me, Snow, and Ash. The brunet shrugged and skimmed the paragraphs of writing, finally making a pleased sound and pointing at one section.

"Right here. ' _Skellurdreki heads have two separate personalities and mentalities, though they can communicate on a slightly telepathic level that allows them to coordinate movements without complications. These personalities are affected by which element each head is associated with, though not in the way most people expect. For typical configurations such as Earth and Air, or Fire and Ice, the Earth head is more flighty and free-spirited than the Air head, which is more grounded and serious. For Fire and Ice, the Fire head is more cool and level-headed, while the Ice head has a shorter fuse and gets mad easily._ '"

"Right, but why is that?" I pried impatiently.

"I'm getting there," Hiccup replied in a slightly annoyed tone. "' _This is because the element they control typically uses the emotions associated with it and leaves the opposite behind when released in the form of a breath attack. In the Earth and Air example, the Earth head uses the Earth element by releasing all of its associated feelings and mindsets and leaves lighter emotions behind, while the Air releases the Air-related emotions and leaves heavier feelings in the head._ ' Whoa. So Ash is so calm and chilly because she can breathe fire with her angry or happy emotions, and Snow is the opposite because she breathes ice with her sad or upset feelings? That's weird."

I shrugged again, settling into my usual position on their back. "That's Myst for you. It's some weird stuff, all right. And yet, without it, the world wouldn't be the same. I mean, in the Before-Time, there was a little Myst in the world. Just enough for the dragons and a few rare monsters and species, like the Vampyrs–"

"Vampyrs?" he interjected bemusedly. I shot him a startled glance, but then brushed the shock away. He didn't know what Myst was, or Myst Magic, or anything like that. It made sense he didn't know what Vampyrs were.

"They live underground with their Blood Lakes and sometimes drink people's blood, and if you want to become one, you have to agree to a contract where, when the Moonstreak is fully visible in the sky, you jump into the Blood Lake they live near, and if you survive the process of changing, you become a Vampyr. The only way the contract can be negated is if you cross running water before the Vampyr you're basically apprenticing yourself to signs the contract. It's very complicated. But _anyways_ , in the Before-Time, Myst wasn't all that common. It usually just stuck around in the ground and didn't circulate, except under extreme circumstances. That's 'cause the old gods didn't like the elemental gods doing their jobs, and refused to let them exercise their powers."

"And then the Catastrophe struck." I nodded in answer to Hiccup's conclusion.

"Yup. The old gods vanished and left the world to die, but the elemental gods stuck around and saved what they could. But the thing is, during the Catastrophe, they say a huge crack opened up in the sky. A gateway to another world. Through it came most of the monsters and whatnot that you've seen so far, and nearly all of the Myst around us. The only real natives of this world are the humans, the Vampyrs, the Dweorgir, very few species of monsters, and all the different dragon species. That was at the same time that the moon was destroyed."

* * *

Hiccup stared at Cog, hoping she was just joking. The moon, destroyed? It couldn't be. It just couldn't. That was impossible. Even if he hadn't seen it for a few nights. Even if there was a strange streak of white dust and rock that periodically passed across the night sky. Even if that same streak was now beginning to peek over the edge of the darkened horizon (wow, was it really nighttime already?). Even if he just remembered her saying something about a Moonstreak.

"W-What... How...? Th-that can't be true."

She gave him a sympathetic look. "I wish it were so. The Catastrophe destroyed the moon, boiled away the seas and oceans, burned most of the land, allowed a huge amount of Myst to come to our world with the flood of monsters, and nearly destroyed everyone in the world, while at the same time the pieces left behind sorta combined into some of the monsters around us. I used to hear stories in the marketplace, about how different the world used to be, in the Before-Time."

The young woman shuddered.

"I can't say it was better than now. There were a lot more humans, but there were also a lot more wars. Most of the time, the Vampyrs and the Dweorgir didn't even try to contact humans, except under really drastic circumstances. Nowadays, everyone is a lot more unified. We have to be, with all the different monsters. You've seen the tamed ones, the ones that won't try to kill or eat you, but in the old days, before people really figured out how to bond, monsters regularly attacked. That's part of the reason why humanity is so few on the surface of the Shattered World."

"The what now?"

"The Shattered World. After the Catastrophe, the remaining humanoid races got together, traveling from places all over the world like the Submerged Lands or the Southern Grasslands, and they all agreed to work together. They cobbled together Panlin, in both its written and spoken forms, modified the existing calendars so they all matched up, and agreed that the world we live on should be given that name, in memory of what we lost during the Catastrophe. Am I talking too much?" she suddenly asked, looking him square in the eye. The young Viking shook his head. He didn't really mind her talking, since she was quite willing to tell him whatever he wanted to know about this world he found himself on, and he also found the sound of her voice quite calming – when she wasn't being excited.

Part of Hiccup told him this was some strange realm similar to Midgard, broken by the Catastrophe long ago and forgotten by the gods. Yet another part scoffed at that, asking that side how there could be dragons he recognized on this world if that were the case. But wait. Cog might be able to tell him.

"Hey, Cog, what's with all the dragons around here? You said they're one of the native species, right?" he pried subtly. Cog nodded cheerfully and slid off the plates, smoothing down the skirt of her dress and her apron when she was back on her feet.

"Yup. The dragons have been around about as long as humans have, maybe longer, if the Vampyrs and the Dweorgir legends are true. I asked my history teacher about that once. _Kennari_ Wrench told me that dragons were the true monsters of the Shattered World, and that nearly all the rest were 'invasive species.' What she meant by that, I don't know, but I do know that people more regularly bond to dragons than other monsters. In terms of total number of species, dragon class monsters are a minority, but in terms of overall numbers, dragons are the most numerous and most bonded to out of all bond animals."

He nodded, and they sat together in companionable silence, letting their dragons converse while they watched the sky turn and the streak of dust and rock that was formerly the moon arc over their heads. Eventually, though, Cog took the book from him and began browsing slowly, and when he glanced over at the worn pages, he was slightly shocked to see dragons he recognized.

Thunderdrums, Monstrous Nightmares, Whispering Deaths, Deadly Nadders, even Snaptrappers and Timberjacks were carefully rendered in fading, yet colorful, ink, each accompanied by detailed paragraphs on the creatures. More graced some of the following pages, taunting him with their familiarity: Terrible Terrors, Changewings, Gronckles, Hideous Zipplebacks, Skrills, Boneknappers, Scauldrons. The list of dragons seemingly followed no real rhyme or reason, like the author had simply written down whatever they were given at the time and then thrown it all together at random.

Others were less familiar. Rockscratchers were giant, blue and black, reptilian cats with crystals on their bodies and apparently shared a symbiotic relationship (whatever _that_ was) with sentient crystals. Typhoomerangs had huge wings, large horns on their heads, and apparently created immense, spiraling burn marks wherever they took off from the ground. Moonshifts were similar to wolves in appearance, only scaly and winged, and their bite could make humans into weredragons; in addition, they could apparently change form. Lifestealers looked like maple leaves, sucked blood from humanoids and sap from trees, and apparently could transform into humans for a short amount of time, like the Moonshifts. Fireworms were small, had many legs, and lived in hives with a Fireworm Queen; their skin burned with the heat of the sun, mainly because of the gel from Firecombs that they ate instead of fish. The Lung had huge, shingle-like scales, massive manes with two antlers rising out of the undulating strands, long whiskers near their flaring nostrils, and spines running down their backs led to tails tipped in feathery fringe. Deathsongs had wings with colorful patterns similar to those of butterflies, and let out a haunting song that lured dragons to their nests so they could be imprisoned in an amber-like substance and subsequently eaten.

There were more, but it was almost a bit too much for his mind to handle. By the discomfited look on Cog's face, she was also overwhelmed and seemed ready to put the book down. But he didn't want her to. He needed to see something.

When she turned the page again, they both squeaked in surprise and delight. There, depicted in charcoal gray and midnight black, was a Night Fury.

"Hey! Look at this!"

* * *

The two of them read the information on Night Furies eagerly, letting out soft gasps of amazement and happiness. Hiccup, especially, was overjoyed. Apparently, Night Furies were rare, but not as much as they had seemed to be on Berk. Eggs only hatched during new moons in the dead of winter, or lunar eclipses at around the same time.

He had asked Cog what the book meant by that, and she explained that it was a rare occurrence where the Moonstreak was blocked out by the Shattered World's shadow.

They had then read further and learned that, while Night Furies were rare, there were reports of a nest somewhere in the Land of the Broken, where a husband and wife couple supposedly lived with them and helped keep them safe from dragon trappers interested in Night Fury hide, or just enemy dragons. This had been about thirty years ago, but it still seemed likely that the nest was still around.

* * *

The look of sheer joy that slowly formed on Hiccup's face made me really happy inside, for some reason. I guess learning that Toothless wasn't all alone in the world was enough to do that to him.

He suddenly embraced me tightly, and after I recovered from the initial surprise, I returned the gesture in kind. Hiccup was my friend. If something I told him made him happy, then I wouldn't regret it. Even if he did nearly crush my internal organs. Jeez. For a guy who seems pretty scrawny, he's got some strength in his toothpick body.

The gesture reminded me of Kai. Well, except for the fact that he had never hugged me like this. He had always just given me a quick, light hug and then walked away. I should have seen that it was proof he didn't feel the same about me. Always saw me as just a baby sister, someone to care for but not really love in the way I wanted. The thought made my chest hurt, but I pushed the feeling down and smiled at Hiccup when he pulled away. I didn't want to ruin this joyous occasion for one of my friends. I could never do that to him.

"Toothless! Hey, bud!" he called over to his dragon, who looked up with curious interest at the mention of his name and padded forward on his ebony claws.

"Bud, you're not going to believe this, but you're not the last Night Fury! This book says there are others out there!" Hiccup told his bond animal, and, being the smart dragon that he is, Toothless warbled happily and bumped his head against the two of us, and I giggled. It quickly changed to full on guffaws when Snow and Ash came over and blew clouds of smoke and ice at Toothless and Hiccup, making the two of them brush away the stuff before it got to them. When I recovered, I put a hand on Hiccup's shoulder again.

"You really thought that? Trust me, Hiccup. Toothless is most certainly not the last of his kind," I commented with dry amusement, brushing a tear from my eye, but my sarcastic tone soon shifted to match their excitement. "But hey, we can always go looking for some after we beat Darksoul! Yeah!"

"Cog Winterstorm! You will get in here right now and explain yourself!"

Lola's voice cut into our joyful little revelation and dampened the mood like water over a fire. Uh, oh. This could not be good.

Hiccup, Toothless, Snow, Ash, and myself all shared one worried, slightly guilty look, and together we walked back into the Library, leaving the night air behind to face our doom.

Since it was in the form of a five hundred year old lady that had seen _and_ survived the Catastrophe, was partners with an acid-spitting, invisible dragon, and apparently used to be on good terms with our enemy, I was concerned.

To say the least.

* * *

 **Author's Notes: For the record, most of the dragons in Hiccup's list of "I'm not familiar with this species" were made up by yours truly. The rest of the list that were canon but not recognized, I either included because he hadn't actually encountered them yet in this timeline, or because he didn't mention them during his scene in the first movie with the Book of Dragons.**

 **I dunno, I feel like having the Night Furies be a bit more common might be too much. But since Hiccup and Cog won't get to see any for several episodes, I'm not too worried. Poor Toothless won't get a girlfriend until later XD And, both in this one and the previous, we had some pining from Hiccup and Cog. I hope it wasn't too weird, but it made sense to me. Hiccup misses Astrid, and Cog misses Kai. Of course they'd start thinking about them, in the wake of the harrowing things they've been through and during moments that remind them of the other person.**

 **But I have plans... Big plans... MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!**

 **Ahem.**

 **Anyways, big, reveal-y stuff is about to go down in the next chapter, including the beginning of their next adventure. What's that, you say? Does it have to do with Cog and Bolt? Why, yes, yes it does. Will it involve earth-shattering revelations for Cog? Of course! What kind of author would I be if I didn't do that to my characters?**

 **Don't answer that.**

 **Please review with whatever you want! The OC donations are still open, since I** ** _really_** **need more characters for what I have coming up. Background characters, unfortunately, but I'm also planning a sort of companion fic to this whole series, so they'll feature more prominently in that. It won't come out until after episode 3, however, since the companion piece will be told from the POV of a character that comes in that episode, so you'll just have to wait.**

 **Wow, that was long.**

 **Wild Cat 214, out! *flies off towards the Moonstreak and Star Dragon***


	7. Chapter 7

_**Chapter 7: Secrets In the Library**_

 **Author's Notes: Big stuff's going down now, so you better strap on your seat belts and hang on tight, 'cause I'm revealing some pretty shocking stuff. What sort of shocking stuff? The kind that will knock your socks off! If you're wearing any, that is.**

 **Okay, it's not THAT shocking, but it's important plot-wise and will help set up for the next episode, so I've got that thing going.**

 **Friendly talks about pasts between Hiccup and Cog, so they're getting closer. Only as friends, though. Only as friends.**

 **Anyways, as of June 11, 2016, I have added the cover art that will be featured on all of the Strays episodes, created by yours truly in Microsoft Paint. The wing design I actually did on pencil as part of a project in art (a detail on a banner that will eventually be featured in this series), and the characters in the top right are the name of the series in Panlin.**

 **Reviews:**

 **MMM (Chapter 6, Jun. 11) – Awesome stuff will happen next! And no, Hiccup and Levi will not date. They'll get their own partners, though ;)**

 **The Story Of Your Life (Chapter 6, Jun. 11) – Sorry about the overwhelming bit, but I feel the need to write what they see and how they're gleaning information from the glimpses, and I was going for a bit of a we're-caught-up-in-reading vibe. As for Hiccup, he's gonna be... surprised, you might say. And Cog will get more. Right now, she just has to figure out what her current ones with Snow and Ash are, since you get some from each bond animal you have.**

 **mc arno (Chapter 6, Jun 12) – Merci pour le OC!**

 **Disclaimer: Hiccup and Toothless, and every other canon How To Train Your Dragon-related thing in this fic, are not mine. Just the OC's, the world, the governments, the monsters, the lifestyles, the... well, you get it.**

 **Key:**

 **0*0*0 – scene change**

 **Horizontal line – perspective change**

-8

 _I'm dedicating this chapter to the victims in the mass shooting in Orlando, Florida. I hate that occurrences like this still happen in today's world. I hate that people think doing things like mass shootings is okay. Everyone's lives are important, regardless of sexual orientation, and shooting over 100 LGBT people is just wrong. I know that a chapter in a fanfiction isn't much in the way of tribute, but right now, it's all I can do for them._

-8

Hiccup followed Cog into the Library uncertainly. He didn't know why she was in trouble, but it was clearly serious, if Lola thought she needed to call her back inside. The sound of a stone grinding against a metal blade intermittently rang through the library, a sound that seemed to illustrate what lay in store for the young woman. They followed it to the center, where Levi was sharpening the two-bladed weapon that Cog had appropriated in Faded Dreams, Dhole was dozing on the floor beside him and the cleaned crossbows with their quivers of bolts, Teresa was putting away cleaned dishes in the background, and Lola was waiting for them with a stern look on her wise face.

"What was that racket outside? It sounded like a dragon fight," she inquired disapprovingly. Cog glanced at him, then smiled back at Lola weakly.

"It, um, kinda was, except it featured only one dragon. Snow and Ash just started fighting for some reason," she explained nervously. Lola's eyebrows rose up towards her hairline.

"Do you know why?" she asked, a bit less scarily this time. Cog shook her head. "All I know is that my Sigil started tingling, and that's when we heard the roaring."

When she mentioned her Sigil, the old Librarian stiffened and stared at her with wide eyes. Her wizened hands gripped the upper arms of the young woman tightly, making her wince a little.

"Your Sigil? Oh. Oh, my. I had thought yours would have already asserted its dominance by now, due to your closer proximity, but I guess not..." Lola muttered, letting go and walking away dazedly. Hiccup and Cog shared a confusedly apprehensive look, and when Levi went up to Lola, he gently patted her shoulder.

"Uh, Lola, what are you talking about?" the older man asked. She turned back to look at all three of us and let out a heavy breath.

"Levi, go into the S section of the Library. Bring me a book called _Sigil Lore_ , and be quick. This is very important," Lola commanded quietly. She then went up to Cog again and placed her hand firmly on the girl's shoulder. "Cog, follow me to the lounge. Hiccup, you sit with her while I find what I need."

-8

I didn't know what was going on, but it scared me. First Lola was angry, then she was upset, and now she's being cryptic. I'm starting to regret telling her about my Sigil being weird.

Hey, maybe it was just my back being ticklish. Right?

No, I know what my Sigil does. This was no case of the tickles, or the itches, or anything like that. It was tingling.

"What's going on?" Hiccup asked. I shook my head. "I don't know, but I'm worried." He put a hand on mine and squeezed gently, and I silently thanked him with a dip of my head. He must have understood, because the young man didn't say anything else.

Eventually, Levi came back with a decent-sized book bound in blue leather, and as Lola took it and began searching for whatever she wanted to find, I took the chance to check out the cover. Though the letters, stars, and small Sigil designs embossed on the cover in silver were excellently done, the fact that she was looking up ancient lore on Sigils frightened me a bit too much for me to appreciate the work.

"Ah, here we go. ' _Twin Sigils are rare occurrences that generally only affect one_ person'... duh duh duh... ' _Sometimes they are formed incompletely. This means that two people share a Twin Sigil to the same monsters, generally formed at the same time, with one person exerting more influence over one half of the Sigil and the other doing the same to the other half. This may result in communication issues between the monster or monsters involved_ '..."

"Okay, but what are you trying to say, Lola?" Levi interjected. She looked at the ceiling in a silent plea to the sky gods and turned back to the book.

"Here. ' _In the event of an incomplete Twin Sigil, it becomes necessary for a battle of souls between the two people that it is divided between. This is the only way to restore balance to the Sigil, and to allow for the winner to achieve the maximum number of five Myst Magics. However, the loser is stripped of any remnants of the Twin Sigil and must attain a new major bond mark._ ' You hear that, Cog? Your Sigil is incomplete. That's why Snow and Ash were fighting, because their bonds are torn between you and the other person they're bonded to," Lola explained firmly. My brow furrowed in confusion. "But, if my Sigil is incomplete, who's the other person?"

"That's easy. I raised her for sixteen years, after all. It's Bolt. You two shared a Linking Ceremony to Snow and Ash, and that means both of your Twin Sigils are incomplete," she replied calmly.

-8

At this news, Cog nodded slowly. Her face, which was slightly worried before, soon shifted to a disturbed look.

"So, does this mean that I have to fight Bolt in a 'battle of souls' to complete one of our Sigils?" she asked carefully. Lola nodded reluctantly.

"Unfortunately, yes. And since she isn't here, you'll have to wait for her to return," she informed them. Levi jumped to his feet at that.

"We don't have time for that! Can't she just go find her sister, or something, and get it over with so we can get back to defeating Darksoul?"

The room went silent, and then Lola smiled widely. "That... actually sounds like a good idea. Cog, are you okay with finding your sister and fighting her in a battle of souls?"

Hiccup's friend shrugged. "I could do it. But... it's kinda late right now, and I don't want to take Snow and Ash out at night. That would probably end badly."

"Oh, yes. I was actually thinking of having you three spend the night before you leave. Levi, you've already learned what you needed, right?" He nodded, satisfying Lola's query, and the old woman turned to Hiccup next. "Hiccup, will you come with me for a moment? I need to ask you a few important questions."

Lola led him away from the group to a small alcove a few yards away, close enough that they could see the others clearly, but far enough that they couldn't be heard by the young woman and older man.

"Hiccup, you're not from the Fractured Lands, are you?" she asked astutely. He blanched, then nodded guiltily.

"Oh, don't look so upset. I can tell you already told them about it, and it really wasn't hard to guess. Your mannerisms, the way you hold yourself, and the fact that you apparently had no clue what I was talking about when we were discussing Cog's family. Why don't you tell me where you're from?"

Hiccup thought about it carefully. Cog had warned him that people might not react well to hearing about where he was from, since even she didn't know where Berk was, but Lola seemed trustworthy enough. She was quite willing to feed them and give them a place to stay, and to give them the knowledge they needed. He could trust her.

"Lola, I'm... I'm from Berk," he revealed. Her eyes widened, and his hopes rose. "You've heard of it?"

"Heard of it? Yes, you could say that... Hiccup, you need to choose. Cog is probably going to find her sister, and Levi is going to travel around the Fractured Lands finding people that will help him fight Darksoul. We discussed it earlier. Who are you going to travel with?"

The young Viking turned his head to look at them. Cog was laughing cheerfully at something Levi had just quipped after Teresa nearly melted his seat when she sneezed, her white hair bouncing as her body shook. Meanwhile, Levi was now rolling his eyes and shooting daggers at the Changewing, who simply looked at him innocently and growled hopefully at Toothless, Snow, and Ash. The Night Fury warbled something that made Snow and Ash huff out intermittent clouds of smoke and ice with croons that shook their body. One was his first real friend, someone who accepted him and Toothless, someone he could trust to help him out. The other was a new friend, one that he completely trusted with his life, yet one that he didn't know much about.

After much deliberation, he decided. "I'm sticking with Cog. She'll need me more than Levi will."

Lola smiled gently and warmly, like the soothing touch of the mother he had never known.

"Thank you. Since you're sticking with her, I have a recommendation. Go with her to the Land of the Old Gods. Bolt is there, and something you need to see. I just hope you won't react too badly when you do," she said gratefully, though the cryptic remark at the end confused him.

"Okay. Just one question. What's the Land of the Old Gods?"

Lola laughed and led him back to the others.

"Hiccup here says he'll go with you, Cog. Levi, I think this might be for the best. It will be easier for you to travel around if you do not have two such... _distinctive_ dragon riders with you, and thus easier to find allies. Return here in, at most, a month. Then, we shall regroup and discuss how we will stop Darksoul," she debriefed them all curtly. The misplaced prince of the Land of the Faded seemed somewhat disappointed at this, but soon recovered and grinned at him, replying that he wouldn't need that long to find some decent fighters. Cog, on the other hand, seemed positively ecstatic at this news.

"Really?! That's great! We'll get going tomorrow!" she exclaimed.

0*0*0

As Lola and Levi carried blankets and bedrolls out to the sitting area and Cog and Hiccup prepared dinner, each thought different things.

Levi thought about how he would finally be able to take revenge on Darksoul for his crimes against his family.

Cog thought about how she would finally be with her family, even if she would have to fight Bolt when they did reunite.

Hiccup thought about how much he missed his home, but was also slightly glad he had left, since it meant he could find people who liked the real him.

Lola thought about how she had never met such a strange assortment of heroes, especially someone like _that_ person.

-8

As we pulled the blankets up over our bodies and fully relaxed for the first time in a few days, I glanced over at Hiccup. Levi had already conked out, snoring away like a saw, so I wasn't too worried about him hearing something weird.

"Hey, Hiccup?" I whispered gently. The young man opened his eyes and sat up. "What is it, Cog?"

"Thanks... for coming with me. It's nice to have someone by my side."

Nuts squeaked in quiet indignation, and I chuckled while stroking his head. "I mean someone I can actually understand, Nuts. Besides, you're usually on my back, not my side."

"Well, you're my friend. I mean, Levi is as well, but I'm still not entirely sure about him yet. Besides, you were willing to help me out even when you could barely help yourself. You're probably the nicest person I've known in my entire life," he replied earnestly. I blushed a little and waved a hand at him.

"Aw, that's sweet of you, but it's all thanks to Mr. Barna. He raised me, after all, and then Strut and Mr. Klaki took over after the accident. People in the Fractured Lands are very big on manners, and both of them were more so than others. They taught me to be kind to others and to always lend a hand, even when I didn't have any to lend. Mr. Barna was the same..." I trailed off, unsure how to continue. My childhood had always been something I thought normal, and that the rigorous lessons in manners were something all kids went through.

But wait. How could I be the nicest person Hiccup had known? How bad had Berk been?

When I asked him, he scowled and flopped back onto his bedroll.

"Back on Berk, I was... well, I was bullied a lot, since I'm smaller than most people there. That's why my name is Hiccup; I'm the runt of the litter. Everyone looked at me with disappointment, even my own father. That is, until I met Toothless."

"What happened then? I thought you said he was your village's worst enemy."

-8

Hiccup sat up and rolled onto his belly, and Cog did the same so they could talk at a bit more personal level.

"Before I continue, I just want you to understand something. On Berk, dragons... dragons were considered the enemy. We killed them, they killed us, and it just cycled like that for three hundred years. All my life, I had wanted to be a real Viking like everyone else. I thought that the only way to do so was to kill a Night Fury, the dragon no one had ever seen, let alone slain. When I shot Toothless down and found him, I was about to do it. That's when I saw it.

"Toothless... he was just as scared as I was. I looked at him... and I saw myself. That's when I knew I could never kill dragons. That's when I cut him loose. He could have killed me, Cog, but he didn't. I think he felt that way, too, that we were the same."

"Soul of a dragon."

Hiccup blinked at the non sequitur. "What?"

"Soul of a dragon. I used to overhear the adults talking about it. It was a rare phenomenon in the Before-Time, where people just couldn't kill dragons because they understood how they felt and thought, like they themselves were a dragon on the inside. That's what happened between you and Toothless, and I guess the same could be said for me and almost any dragon. I just won't hurt a dragon. It's more common now, since we know that dragons won't hurt us without just cause, but not everyone has it."

"Yeah, that makes sense. That same day, my father put me in dragon training. I know what it sounds like, but it's not like that. It wasn't how to train dragons. It was how to kill them. At first, I sucked. I won't lie. But as I eventually gained Toothless' trust and began helping him, since I'm the reason he lost his tail, I used the knowledge I gained about dragons from him to succeed in the ring. For the first time in my life, I had friends."

"But they didn't know, did they? That your success came from actually having a dragon to train with."

"Yeah... My entire life was a lie. When I took first place in training and was selected to kill the Monstrous Nightmare for my last test, I just had to go. I couldn't kill that dragon any more than I could kill Toothless, and I didn't want the village to find out. I had actually left the island with Toothless, the day before my final test was scheduled, when I got caught up in that storm and crashed into your house."

"Wow. Thanks."

"For what?"

"For telling me. I mean, we barely know each other, yet you still trust me enough to let me know about why you left Berk. I appreciate it. Since we're delving into our pasts, I guess I should tell you about my life before I met you, as well.

"Growing up at the Academy as a foundling wasn't easy. I was picked on a lot, both because of my lack of a bloodline and because of my lack of height, and since I simply brushed it off and kept smiling, it continued. I never really told anyone about it, since it didn't really seem to matter what the other kids did and said. Besides, I had Mr. Barna and Nuts, and later Strut and Mr. Klaki as well.

"But when I turned fifteen and still hadn't found my bond animal, the teachers at the Academy decided to turn me loose. What good's a soldier without any real, truly useful Myst Magic or bond marks? So they had me graduated and gave me the house and dye works on the outskirts of town. I didn't really mind being the city's dyer, since I can't smell and it meant I had some freedom, but it was lonely. Mr. Barna was still in the Hall of Healing, Strut traveled around and couldn't afford to take me with, Mr. Klaki had his duties as the teacher in the forges, and Kai was busy as the headmaster."

"Oh, yeah. That reminds me. Why did you fall in love with him?"

The young woman's face turned bright red with embarrassment.

"He was one of the few people at the school that was actually good to me. He always treated me well, and sometimes he would give me special treatment. Now, I guess it was just him treating me like a sister. I should have realized that sooner..."

"Hey, don't worry, Cog. It'll all work out okay, you'll see."

"Yeah, you're right. Besides, I'm going to find my sister. I won't have to be all alone in the world any more. I wonder what she's like..."

"Who knows? There was a pair of twins on Berk, but they were brother and sister, and they kinda picked on each other a lot. Ruffnut and Tuffnut were weird."

She giggled when he mentioned their names, and Hiccup raised an eyebrow. "What's so funny?"

"That's their names? Hiccup, be glad you were called that. It could have been worse." The young woman giggled again.

"Much worse. Besides, it has a nice ring to it. Hiccup and Cog, Cog and Hiccup, mighty and powerful dragon riders," she joked lightheartedly. The young Viking rolled his eyes, but smirked at the attempt to cheer him up.

Lola smiled softly from her spot between two glass cases. It was nice to see those two getting along so well. They would need it, where they were going. And though she could also see that Levi was silently listening in, his eyes open as he laid on his side, back to the two kids, the old Librarian was glad he didn't interrupt. Things might have gotten awkward if the usurped prince had asked where Berk was.

And she couldn't have that, could she?

-8

 **Author's Notes: Before any of you ask, Lola** ** _does_** **know something about Berk. However, you won't get to see what it is until the next episode. I know, I'm a terrible, terrible person! But the wait'll be worth it. If I told any of you, it would be spoilers, and I want you to find out the slow and awesome way.**

 **Are my characters too weird? I mean, Levi is being kinda a jerk right now, but he'll get better. He's just a bit upset that the guy responsible for his dad's death is now sitting on the throne that rightfully belongs to him. Cog sometimes seems a little too bright and cheery to me, but I guess that's because most of my characters aren't as sunny as she is. Is Hiccup OOC?**

 **In case you hadn't noticed, I am very self-conscious when it comes to my characters. I don't want them to seem too OP or Mary Sue/Marty Stu-ish, but that's a typical author worry.**

 **Let me know how I'm doing in a review! I like any kind of feedback!**

 **Till next time! Goodbye! Wild Cat 214, out!**

 **(Anyone else think Monsieur from .Hack is pretty irritating? Or is it just me?)**


	8. Chapter 8

_**Chapter 8: Far Off In the Gloaming**_

 **Author's Notes: We're gonna take a little break from Hiccup, Cog, and the others so we can lead into the next episode. I debated this quite a bit, and I decided that it would be better to put it here, while Hiccup and Cog are resting up, rather than after they leave to find Bolt. It's kinda filler, but it's important to know, so it's really more of a transition than just me taking up space. And it takes place at approximately the same period of time, so that's a plus.**

 **By the way, has anyone been watching Race to the Edge on Netflix? I usually use my friend's account, since I don't have internet at my house, and every time I hear them mention Viggo, I think of the character from SSX3 instead of some intimidating, really smart dragon trapper. Yeah, I have a pretty weird mind... but that's what makes me fun!**

 **Reviews:**

 **MMM (Chapter 7, Jun. 13) – For your first question, no, she is from Drekis, the village of the dragon skins, though she knows about Berk. For your second question, you'll just have to wait and see :P For your third question, it's a big maybe ;)**

 **The Story Of Your Life (Chapter 7, Jun. 14) – Thanks for the reassurances. I'm glad Cog is someone a person can relate to, and that Levi's attitude is understandable. As for Hiccup and Cog, well... ;)**

 **mc arno (Chapter 7, Jun. 14) – Merci beaucoup! It's nice to know I'm not the only one who makes their readers wait for important reveals.**

 **Disclaimer: HTTYD is not mine. I just own the DVD's of the movies and some of the TV shows (Riders and Defenders).**

 **Key:**

 **0*0*0 – scene change**

 **Horizontal line – perspective change**

* * *

I closed the ancient stone chest with a final resounding thud and stood up. So far, nothing. I had checked in every nook and cranny, beneath every stone, inside every ruined wall, and still no sign of the artifact. I was starting to give up.

No. I couldn't give up. I was a Winterstorm girl. Giving up was for lesser mortals, the ones that only dreamed of being part of my family. I had to find that damn artifact, or else Lola would be so disappointed, and the world would be so screwed.

With that resolve, I deepened my search, poking into places I didn't even know my hand could fit inside and focusing my anolite crystal into even the darkest holes. It had to be somewhere.

"Stupid relic. Why did you have to be hidden so well?" I muttered under my breath, reaching up instinctively to make sure the blue scarf I had tied around my nose and mouth was still tight. I know Lola had said the Land of the Old Gods wasn't toxic to anyone, but I still wasn't taking any chances. If I had to find that damn thing, I was doing it in a way that would give me peace of mind.

 _"_ _The artifact I need you to find may not seem like much, but it is very powerful. In the right hands, it can repair wounds in the entire cosmos. But in the wrong hands, it can widen and worsen those holes, and thus allow Darknesse to enter further. Bolt, you must not let this happen. Find the treasure of my village. It is our only hope, if we ever want to bring an end to this bitter, eternal war."_

I coughed a bit and sighed. What had she meant by that? What war? There wasn't any war going on anywhere on the Shattered World. But then... she had always talked about the Everpit, and the whole "battle between light and dark" at the "heart of the world" that took place at its bottom. Maybe the artifact was related to that battle.

I left the ruins of the house on the highest hill and exhaled slowly. Once, this village had been home to dragon skins and half-skins. Now, it was just another abandoned settlement ravaged by time and the Catastrophe. It was saddening.

My head shook as I tried to clear that thought from my mind. No. Now was not the time to get sentimental over a moldering wreck. Now was the time to find that damned box with a supposedly powerful thing inside.

"Well, she described it pretty clearly. Wrought of pure gold with jeweled accents that formed the shape of two dragons twining around each other on the lid. Shouldn't be too hard to find," I mumbled grouchily. The sooner I was out of here, the better.

I loped down the hill and towards where I had found the temple over the Everpit, which was still in surprisingly good condition, considering it was over five hundred years old. I guess when dragon skins build something that special, they build to last.

This was the last place I needed to look. I had searched every house, hut, shed, and outhouse (which wasn't too bad, considering the muck inside had about five centuries to finish decomposing and return to the earth), so if the artifact was anywhere in the village, it was here. Why I hadn't simply started at the temple, I don't know. Maybe I had hopes I wouldn't need to go near such a spooky place. Religious sites, or places with a lot of stories and legends and myths about them, always creeped me out.

Joan squawked in warning as I was mounting the steps of the ancient building, and I leapt backwards in time to avoid what would have been a very nasty fall as the step disintegrated beneath my feet. I glanced over at the Kokatolis gratefully. "Thanks, girl! Think you could give me a lift up there?"

The huge bird chirped and allowed me to climb onto her back, then beat her wings powerfully and flew up to the temple. I would have done it myself, but for some reason the Everpit was up on a mountain, and the steps to the temple were made of wood over a dry riverbed. Maybe they thought it would be a nice touch to their temple, to have their visitors walking over water as they went. Right now, though, it was a stupid design and I decided that the architect should have their grave danced on, as soon as I got back and found out who it was and where they were buried.

But taking revenge on someone who had probably been dead for centuries would have to wait, because I had a temple to search.

And when I was done, I would _raze it to the ground_.

Wait, no. Lola would kill me if I defiled her village's sacred place like that. Instead, I'd just fantasize about it. Yeah, I'd simply imagine what I'd do to this damned temple if I didn't have to preserve it. Yeah...

* * *

Darksoul sighed from the comfortable armchair in his study. Damn that Cog. Damn that Hiccup. Damn that Levi! When he had heard they had someone helping them escape, he hadn't realized it would be William Wolfram's brat until they reported the green Seraph he had been riding. Now his two greatest opponents – and whoever this Hiccup boy was – had joined forces and were going to try and stop him! He just knew it!

" **Darksoul, they're going to learn about the prophecy. You should have killed that Skellurdreki when you had the chance,** " Heimska growled in his head. The ancient man scoffed and stood up, stalking over to the window to look out at the night. Once, the darkness had terrified him, though he had never told anyone. Now he embraced it fully. It was why he had chosen the name Darksoul, to replace the one that had originally been his with something better. Fitting that a name chosen partially in jest would be so appropriate now.

"Don't worry, Heimska. They can't do anything to you. We still have time. Besides, whoever this duplicate is that will end the Catastrophe, they haven't shown up yet. You have nothing to fear," he replied with a smooth, oily voice. Heimska snarled wordlessly.

" **I am not afraid of anything. It is why the Mistress chose me as her ultimate agent in this blasted realm. I was more concerned about what would happen to** _ **you**_ **if they learn about Farseer's damnable prophecy.** " Heimska paused, as if making sure his partner knew what he was talking about. It was no secret that Darksoul and Heimska's relationship wasn't exactly on even ground, at least to them. They both knew that they needed the other, but they didn't have to like it. And they didn't, that much was clear.

" **If you die because those brats discovered your link to me, I'll have to connect to someone else to get the job done, and it was awful enough training you. I don't want to have to start over,** " his monster explained coldly, and Darksoul cringed. He didn't need a reminder of the three years before the Catastrophe, _thank you very much_. That time had been bad enough without remembering it again.

"I understand, Heimska. Don't worry. My generals will make sure that they cannot do a thing to you, ever."

He shivered slightly when he felt his partner's presence fade away, roughly using his hands to support him on the windowsill, and let out a shuddering breath. Even after the many long decades he had spent bonded to Heimska, their conversations always left him feeling weakened and unsteady. But this time, it was more than that. He knew that, if he failed his partner, there would be no second chances. Darksoul needed to keep Heimska safe until the time was right. After that, everything would be nothing but roses and sunshine.

For them, anyways.

* * *

I took a deep breath before I began storing the supplies in my pack. This was it. I was really leaving. Nothing my mother and father said could stop me. I had to do this, if I ever wanted to be a healer like I had dreamed of since I was younger.

The soft whistle of Anaheim caught my attention, and I quickly finished stuffing in the books, anolite crystals, and other things I would need for this journey. Right before my parents walked in, I hid it beneath my bed and sat on the edge, staring sightlessly at a book I had just grabbed and opened to a random page.

"Armin, we know you want to be a healer, but being a monster tamer is a prestigious and important career. Don't you want to make your ancestors proud?" my mother said softly. I looked up from the book and brushed a lock of blond hair out of my face.

"Mother, I know that you want me to live up to the Pearlblood family name, but our ancestors would be just as proud of me for doing what my heart tells me to do. That's what they were always doing, right?" I replied heatedly. Mother and Father shared an exasperated look, and this time it was _his_ turn to try and get me to see reason.

"Armin, even when previous Pearlbloods were following their hearts, they still obeyed the wishes of their parents. The only one who didn't was Arrow, and he was only half Pearlblood. You can't just expect us to let you learn something as weak as healing. We didn't train you for that!" he said forcefully. I scowled and slammed the book closed. Oh, so this was how they were going to do it? Well, two – or, I guess it would be three, since it was me, Mother, and Father – could play that game.

"No, you trained me to engage in mindless fighting just so I could bring back the family's wealth after you and Mother squandered it!" I screamed back. They both flinched, and, for a brief moment, I felt shame. I had just yelled at my parents. And yet, it felt good to release all that frustration with my family. It had been held back, bottled up, forced inside for so long I had run the risk of being poisoned by it.

"...Young man."

My father's icy tone made me wince prematurely. This would not bode well, if he wasn't using my given name.

"This has nothing to do with the state of our finances. This has to do with you carrying on the family legacy. Now, until you get the foolish idea of being some pathetic healer out of your head, we're locking you in here. Don't even think of trying to escape. The moment you step foot off the grounds, we're disowning you."

With that threat, he slammed the door, and I was left frozen on the edge of my bed. Was he serious? Was my father just joking? Would he actually disown his only son, the last heir of the Pearlblood family?

I sighed. Of course he would. Father was a man of his word. If he said he would disown me, he'd do it in a heartbeat. It was why he was such a fierce warrior, a legendary monster tamer, a renowned nobleman at the court of the Land of the Strayed's _Jarl_ Piecemeal, and an effective teacher all at once. It was why I had never been able to do anything out of line without being swiftly punished.

The gently high-pitched noise of Anaheim at my window saved me from the distasteful memories of disobeying my parents as a child, and I looked at my Whistler gratefully. Annie's mouth split apart to the sides to let her lick me, and I carefully stroked her head. Having a monster with a very spiky head means I need to be extra cautious when touching her, but she likes it, and it calms me down.

"We have to leave, Annie. There's bound to be somewhere we can hide from my parents," I murmured against her neck, holding it lightly after I had relaxed enough to move to that point. Her flippers – that is, the ones not suspending her in the air with the gas bags inside – brushed against me in reply, the sign she used to show she was ready. I steeled myself, yanked my stuffed pack out from under the bed, slung it onto my shoulder, and climbed onto Anaheim's back, giving my room one more glance. This would probably be the last time I was here. A twinge of sadness pierced me, but I ignored it and patted Annie's head quietly.

"Let's go, girl."

0*0*0

Now that we were actually gone, I considered where we might go. The Land of the Forgotten didn't have very good _Kennaris_ of healing, and neither did the Lands of the Squandered or the Faded. The other inhabited parts of the Fractured Lands were too close, too far, or had relatives that would be quite willing to send me back to my father to face my punishment. There was no chance of learning anything about healing in the Forbidden Firelands, the Sands of Stolen Time, or the Forsaken Forest, not even from the Treants that lived in that last option. There was only one place I could go where my father would never search for me.

The Land of the Old Gods.

Sure, it would be hard to learn about healing there, but I could always study the effects of the Catastrophe on the ground, and the surplus of Myst would mean I could at least protect myself from any lost monster that decided I would make a tasty snack. Besides which, I didn't have a passport, so it was the only foreign land I could flee to, and I could always take quick trips to the Land of the Rejected for supplies. Anaheim could go off without me to catch her own food. I would be fine without her for a day or so – after all, it's just the Land of the Old Gods. The only dangers there are starvation, thirst, and boredom. And the occasional lost monster.

That settled it. Off to the Land of the Old Gods!

I turned Anaheim so we were heading north, following the direction the Star Dragon's nose pointed to, and we flew off. Away from our home of sixteen years. Away from the life we had known. Away from the people we knew.

But towards a new life, one where we made our own fate.

* * *

 **Author's Notes: To be clear, I am simply using the names Armin and Annie in conjunction because I want to. There is no connection to Attack On Titan beyond these appellations. So please don't review with a "Hey, why are AOT characters in this story?" They aren't. It's just me using the names.**

 **So, now that I'm done defending my choices, I hope you guys liked this chapter, too! I know I haven't really developed Bolt and Armin enough yet, but they're getting there. The real character developments will come in later episodes, where we'll see more of them.**

 **Reviews, as always, are welcome! Even if you're a relatively new reader, go ahead! I love feedback of any sort!**

 **Wild Cat 214, out!**


	9. Chapter 9

_**Chapter 9: I'm On My Way**_

 **Author's Notes: The penultimate chapter, peeps!** ** _Last of the Winterstorms_** **is nearly over! That... actually saddens me a bit. But it also means I can finally tell you guys what I've been hiding for the last two episodes! YAAAAAAAAAAAAY! *Kermit flail***

 **Fun Fact: the name of this chapter is actually based off a song by the Proclaimers, called (you guessed it)** ** _I'm on My Way_** **. It's very sweet, and the guys have nice accents when they sing, and David Tennant also likes them. Yeah, Spitelout! WHOOO! Also the Tenth Doctor, and Barty Crouch Junior! And a whole bunch of other things, I'm sure, but those are the ones I know!**

 **As you can see, I am either extremely hyper or extremely tired, or both at once. It's exhausting being human and a writer.**

 **Fun Fact 2: The reason behind the name of this series will be revealed at the very end of the next episode.**

 **Fun Fact 3: Hugs are scientifically proven to make you feel better (because your body releases endorphins when you're hugged), especially when it's with someone you care about like family or close friends. So give someone you love a hug today! They just might need it.**

 **Reviews:**

 **mc arno (Chapter 8, Jun. 17) – Merci!**

 **The Story Of Your Life (Chapter 8, Jun. 18) – Oh, yes, we'll get to see more of them. Sadly, you're gonna have to wait to see what's coming to him, since that won't happen for a while :P Yeah, making a character seem realistic is definitely important. I try to make little profiles so I can get a good sense of who my character is, and it really helps!**

 **Disclaimer: HTTYD is not mine. I just wish it was.**

 **Key:**

 **0*0*0 – scene change**

 **Horizontal line – perspective change**

* * *

When we woke up the next morning, watery sunlight was streaming in through the massive windows along the walls. Last night the curtains must have been drawn, because I could not remember there being such gigantic panes of glass enclosing us.

I sat up sleepily, feeling the pinpricks of Nuts' claws on my skin as he crawled over my body and up my back. My battered armor lay in a pile near the rest of our things, and it seemed like Levi and Hiccup were still sleeping. Snow and Ash opened their eyes and raised their heads, crooning softly when they realized I was awake. I said good morning to all three of my bond animals and stretched, relishing the slight cracking of my back as I bent backwards. I had always been pretty flexible, but that didn't mean I couldn't still pop my joints when I stretched.

"Ah, I see you're awake. Before you go, I want to give you some books," Lola called over to us quietly from her spot near the stove, where she was cooking breakfast, I hoped. A quick glance at Nuts, Snow, and Ash told me they had no clue what she was talking about; not that I could have understood them if they had, since I sadly do not speak dragon.

"Come, come. I have them right here, but I need you to get them. Don't want to burn the bacon, after all," she chortled, motioning to the small stack of books on the wicker chair near her. I pushed myself onto my feet and walked over, carefully stepping past Dhole and Levi, who slept in the way, to take a look. On the top was a book titled _Monster Tamers of the Fractured Lands: An Anthology_ , and below this were the revised _Book of Dragons_ , _Sigil Lore_ , and _Humanoid Species of the World_. I picked them up and looked at her in shock.

"You're... you're _giving_ me these?" Lola took the bacon off of the skillet and set them on a plate nearby, then poured in what looked like scrambled egg mixture and stirred it around.

"Of course. You're gonna need them for the trip ahead of you. Don't forget, though. They're also for Hiccup. He might enjoy some of them," she replied absentmindedly, though she did wink at me briefly.

What was that all about?

"Now, can you wake the boys? Breakfast is almost ready, and you three need to get an early start, if you want to get anywhere before sunset."

* * *

Hiccup grumbled sleepily and brushed away the hands shaking his shoulder excitedly.

"Five more minutes..." he slurred, still half-asleep. The offending hands left him alone, and for a few moments the young man smiled slightly and buried his face deeper into the pillow.

Then, everything changed when the Fire Nation— _I mean_ , something crawled into his shirt and began pricking his skin.

He jolted up with a yelp and felt for whatever was violating his personal space, only to pull out... Nuts. Cog was doing her best to suppress her laughter, though a few snorts managed to free themselves, but when he shot her a dirty look, all pretenses fell and she burst into highly amused guffaws.

"Cog, what was that for?" he grumbled, still feeling slightly itchy from the pinpricks of Nuts' claws on his bare skin.

"It's time to wake up. Breakfast is ready, and we need to leave pretty soon. Besides, I think we should all take nice baths before we go. It'll be one of the last times we do for a while."

* * *

After a relaxing bath, where he was fascinated to learn that the hot water came from a combination of aqualite and azocite crystals that had steady pulses drummed out on them with small hammers to keep the stuff flowing, Hiccup tucked into the meal Lola had cooked up with gusto. It had been well made, though it was simple fare, and tasted just as good as Gobber's cooking.

The thought made him homesick, not for the first time and most assuredly not for the last time, but he pushed the feeling away swiftly. It was clear to him that, wherever he was, it was a very long way away from Berk, and so there was no point in missing his village until he knew how to get back. At least, that was what the logical part of him, the mind that had come up with all of his marvelous inventions, told him sternly. His heart still felt a lonely twinge whenever he was reminded of Berk.

Cog and Levi soon finished their own baths and came out smelling fresh and clean, almost completely dry, and dug in as well. It was only after everyone had eaten their fill, including the dragons and Seraph (the reptiles had been given plenty of fish, while the lupine monster had been given a juicy, raw steak from gods knew where), that Lola stood up and began rummaging through the glass-fronted cupboards around them.

"Now, then. You'll need supplies where you're going, Hiccup, Cog. Take those blankets and bedrolls you slept in, and a few other things as well," the old woman informed them, and the two rushed to gather everything up and pack it away. Levi did the same, only he took less of the proffered food and a bit more of the gold, silver, and copper coins she handed out small bags of to the three humans.

"Remember, you need to be back here in no more than a month. Cog, you can keep track of the date, right? It's the sixth day of the Ram, so you two should return by the sixth day of the Bull, at the latest."

"Can do, Lola. Hey, Levi, when you go finding those people to help us, make sure to mention that you have powerful friends. It'll make things easier for you and keep away the con artists," Cog advised the older man. He smirked. "That won't be a problem. Most people know better than to mess with a man bonded to a Seraph."

"Yeah, I know, but I'm talking about the people with fewer brains. They're out there, you know," she replied in an ominous tone. Levi chuckled and continued packing, making sure everything was tied down.

"Levi, before you go, I have a few words to share with you. The same goes for both you and Hiccup, Cog, so just keep packing. I'll get to you in time," Lola notified them shortly before she and Levi walked off.

* * *

I looked at Lola curiously.

"What is so private that can't be discussed while they're around?" I asked cautiously. She sighed softly and put a hand on my shoulder, tightening her grip until it was like a vise, alerting me to the fact that she was a lot stronger than she looked.

"Levi, I know you overheard them last night. Don't tell them anything. Not even if they ask you if you have any information on Berk. They need to learn for themselves," she warned me. I rolled my eyes and managed to pry her hand off.

"I know that much. You just as much said so last night, when you said Hiccup would be going with Cog to the Northern Deadlands. Now, do you have anything actually relevant to tell me?" I countered snidely. Lola cuffed my head with her other hand, reminding me that she was still the boss right now.

"Yes, actually. It is advice for when you start your trip around the Fractured Lands. Be careful in the Lands of the Squandered and the Abandoned. Darksoul has his tendrils deep in those lands, so you'll want to keep a low profile. I recommend starting in the Land of the Forgotten. The rivalry between that nation and the Land of the Faded should be good enough to get you plenty of allies there. Is that good enough for you?" she replied with a small smirk, as if daring me to deny that it was good advice. I sighed. Well, there was no use hiding it.

"Oh, yes, very much. Thank you, Lola. My gratitude knows no bounds, and on behalf of the Wolfram family, I thank you most profusely," I said humbly, bowing low and performing one of the highest gestures of admiration known to the Fractured Lands, the same one I had shown Cog not too long ago. To do it, you roll your shoulders back, and at the same time move your hands in small semicircles from the center of your torso to the outside. The seemingly simple gesture is not that easy to perform, and the mere fact that I had done it showed how much I truly appreciated her help.

"Oh, stop it, you little charmer. You're making me blush," she simpered, but I could tell it was mostly in jest. Lola was not your average old woman, oh no. That was part of the reason I admired her. That, and she was apparently able to put up with Cog's sister for sixteen years. Something told me that hadn't been an easy task.

* * *

Levi soon left Lola's side, and the Librarian summoned Hiccup next. He left Cog to packing up their things and putting what remained of her armor back on, though she was swearing to the sky gods under her breath that, while they were in the Land of the Old Gods, she would fix it and improve it. Lola smiled at him warmly and gently put a hand on his shoulder before she began telling him that his journey would be dangerous, but that she was very thankful he would be going with Cog. When he asked her if she knew anything about Berk, the old woman's face tightened briefly, then relaxed under a mask of false serenity.

"Go to the Land of the Old Gods. Find the center of the Catastrophe. There, you will find the answers you seek."

Even now, after she had uttered those words mysteriously and was now talking to Cog, he could still feel she had been leaving something out. What had she meant by that? Was Lola starting to go a little crazy in her extremely old age?

Or was he just overthinking something and needed a good flight on Toothless to clear everything up?

At that moment, Lola released Cog from their conversation and came back over, helping finish up the packing and aimlessly chatting.

"Thanks again," she suddenly murmured, a bit quieter than the others could hear from their spots a few feet away. Hiccup looked at her in mild surprise.

"For what?"

"For coming with. Traveling on my own to find my sister in the Northern Deadlands... well, I don't think I could have handled it on my own. I'm glad you're with me."

He grinned and patted her shoulder. It had occurred to him, while he was falling asleep last night, that their relationship's dynamic had changed, and now was the perfect time to tell her.

"Hey, we're not just friends. We're partners, too. You help me, I help you, and we stick together. That's what partners do. And if it means going with you to find your sister, well, so be it."

Something nagged at him for a little bit, and it took a few moments to realize what.

"Wait... I thought we were going to the Land of the Old Gods. What's with this Northern Deadlands thing you're talking about?"

* * *

"Well, Hiccup, which sounds like a nicer place to visit, the Land of the Old Gods or the Northern Deadlands?" I asked him, leaning against the side of my dragon, who had curled up beside me to conserve energy before the trip. Hiccup gave me his usual shrug.

"The Land of the Old Gods," he replied. I nodded once and looked to the north. Beyond the Land of the Rejected lay the Northern Deadlands, where we had to go to find Bolt. She was somewhere out there, within the borders of the Catastrophe's initial blast, hunting for some important artifact that would save the world.

"I rest my case," I replied firmly. "They're the same place, it's just that people give them a different name so that people aren't as nervous when they're mentioned. Sort of a way to sugarcoat what remains of the beginning of the Catastrophe, and a way to insult the old gods. Remember, they left us to die. People thought calling the Northern Deadlands the Land of the Old Gods would be the perfect way to get back at them, and over time, it just stuck."

He smiled sardonically and slung his pack, a quiver of crossbow bolts, and his own crossbow over his shoulder.

"That's one weird insult." I chuckled and affixed the quiver to my back, attached the two-bladed sword to that, and then hoisted my pack onto my other shoulder. I may not look like it, but I have a pretty good back, and I can carry some decent loads if needed. That's what happens when you have to get your canoe to and from the river you sailed on for ingredient gathering.

"Ask any foreigner and they'll tell you that the people of the Fractured Lands are weird. We're the most diverse region, in terms of races and monsters, so we have a lot of cultures mixing together into one big stew. Things are bound to be weird, even our insults." I paused in my tracks. That actually reminded me of something. "Oh, word of advice. If someone calls you a fleet-footed Lapichus, feel free to punch them. Lapichus are these monsters from the Blasted Lands that are huge cowards, so being called one..."

"Is the same as being called cowardly."

"Exactly. You catch on quick." He smiled warmly at me.

"Well, you're not that bad a teacher. You seem to like what you're talking about, and you don't mind telling me things plenty of others know, so it makes it more enjoyable."

I blushed a little at the compliment. That was the first time anyone had actually said they enjoyed hearing me teach them things. It made me feel... appreciated. Which was new. At least, to me, it was.

"Yes, well, um... even though I don't really like... reading big books about boring topics, I do like learning things, and... sharing what I learn... with others," I stammered out, the awkward pauses making me even more flustered than before. He patted my shoulder.

"I can tell."

I chuckled sheepishly, then stopped.

"Hey! What's _that_ supposed to mean?"

0*0*0

All too soon, it was time to leave. The sun had risen, providing light to the floating islands that people lived on and turning the Myst below into a beautiful, if deadly, mantle of silver over the forests and swamps, the lakes and rivers, the small meadows and large hills that made up the Fractured Lands.

"Well, I guess this'll be the last I see of you five for a week or so," Levi said, the barest hint of sadness tinging his words. I rolled my eyes, grabbed Hiccup's hand, and pulled us all over to him. I quickly embraced the two of them in a tight group hug that even Dhole, Toothless, Nuts, and Snow and Ash joined in on.

"Hey, don't be sad. Just think of this as... um, farewell, but not goodbye. Besides, we'll all come back with new stories to tell, and that'll be exciting enough to make it feel like we were there, right?"

"Don't worry, Levi. We'll meet again," Hiccup added. We all pulled away and gave Levi and Dhole some room to get ready to go.

"You can bet on it! See ya later, alligators!" he whooped as they took off. Lola waved goodbye, as did Teresa – who did it with her ivy antennae, but still managed to make it look like a farewell wave – and I jumped up in the air while I waved my hands wildly.

"In awhile, crocodile!" I shouted back. I didn't really know who had first come up with that little collection of goodbye phrases, but it was the unofficial (and much less complicated) ceremony for saying farewell.

After that, it was our turn to say goodbye to Lola and Teresa.

"I will miss you two. You brought energy and life back to this musty old place," she murmured, taking me and Hiccup into a tight bear hug that left us both gasping quietly for air.

"Hey, when we get back, you'll have double the Winterstorm around. I think that's energy aplenty, don't you?" Hiccup quipped, making me giggle and Lola chuckle.

"Oh, sometimes I think that. Other times, I wonder if my Library could get any quieter," she teased, ruffling my hair affectionately. I grinned back and squirmed out of reach.

"Don't tempt me! I might tell Bolt we need to show you just how loud we can be when we get back!" I declared. They both groaned in mock horror.

Soon, I was on Snow and Ash's back, and Hiccup was on Toothless. Nuts was back in his spot on the back of my armor, clinging to the leather tightly. He may be the closest thing I have to family right now, but I can't deny he's something of a coward. Oh, well. I was more used to doing all the fighting myself, so it wasn't that big a deal.

"'Bye, Lola! 'Bye, Teresa! We'll see you soon!" I called out to them a bit tearfully. They waved goodbye as we took off, the five of us heading north, going by the position of the sun.

We were on our way to find Bolt. To find my sister, and whatever else lay in store for us in the Land of the Old Gods.

I just hoped the Northern Deadlands would be kind to us.

* * *

 **Author's Notes: Sadly, this ends the portion of the episode that features Cog, Hiccup, and Levi.**

 **But important stuff happens in the final chapter, so I can't complain too much. You'll be shocked, intrigued, and a little upset with me at the end for what I do, but hey, at least you'll keep reading, right?**

 **Right?**

 **Anyways, reviews, as always, are welcome, and I will treasure them forever and ever.**

 **See ya later, alligators! Wild Cat 214, out!**


	10. Chapter 10

_**Chapter 10: A Backwards Glance**_

 **Author's Notes: Last chapter, everyone! WOOOOT! And yet, I am also kinda sad. This is the end of the second episode. We're a tenth of the way done!**

 **After this, there'll be surprises galore! Yeah!**

 **Reviews:**

 **mc arno (Chapter 9, Jun. 20) – Merci! The Fractured Lands are slightly bigger than Europe and roughly ellipsoid, with three uncivilized lands to the west, south, and east, and the Land of the Old Gods to the north.**

 **The Story Of Your Life (Chapter 9, Jun. 26) – Thanks! I generally just write down basic details (age, height, hair, etc.), and then I add backstory and whatnot. It makes it easier to write an OC when I understand their character.**

 **Disclaimer: HTTYD is not mine. If it were, Hiccup and Astrid's relationship would have developed a bit more realistically in the first movie.**

 **Key:**

 **0*0*0 – scene change**

 **Horizontal line – perspective change**

* * *

Lola and Teresa watched from one of the balconies as Levi flew to the southeast on Dhole, and Hiccup, Nuts, and Cog flew to the north on Toothless and Snow and Ash. It made her old heart proud to see that people had decided to deal with Darksoul at last, though it also worried her. How had that boy and his Night Fury come to be here, and why was their appearance the impetus for the change? Why had they showed up so near Cog? Was it merely coincidence, or did the sky gods have something to do with it?

Well, whatever the answers to those questions, she did know one thing. Xavier Darksoul must be stopped. It had been years since she last saw him, but that was after he went over to the side of Darknesse, when she had informed him of Farseer's prophecy. He had been such a sweet little boy as a child, even if he had been a half-skin in a village of dragon skins. She understood what that was like. The village of the dragon skins (a place that had been rich in the Myst that lurked deep underground before the Catastrophe) and its inhabitants had been wary of people like Lola and Xavier. Half-skins were rare and were sometimes a source of shame to their parents, since they seemed incomplete until they bonded with a dragon or human. But Xavier's parents had died, killed while they were merged with their dragon siblings by humans looking for dragon hide, and he had not been taken in by anyone. It was no wonder he now wanted what he did.

To be accepted by everyone.

But she did have to wonder, how had he lived so long, and stayed so youthful-looking? Lola could attribute it to her bond with Teresa (after all, dragons normally had very long lifespans), but even _she_ had aged over the centuries. He still looked the same as he had when he had vanished shortly before the Catastrophe. There was something she was missing, some vital clue that would tell her how he had managed to keep his true identity hidden for so long. And no matter what, she would find out what he was plotting to do once he took over the Fractured Lands. The prophecy had worried him so long ago. Perhaps he had some hidden connection to the foggy meaning behind the words.

'Maybe I should examine it more closely,' Lola resolved silently, turning away from the shrinking specks that were Darksoul's fugitives and heading into the Library. With further study, she might just find the last piece to this puzzle and be able to figure out what Darksoul had planned. Only then could she truly help Hiccup, Cog, and Levi, as well as everyone else in the world.

* * *

Stoick woke up with a start, blinking a few times to make sure he was in his house. For a moment, he thought he was somewhere else, somewhere woodsy, but no, he was lying in his bed, safe at home. It had been a few months since Hiccup disappeared, with a storm raging around the island making it impossible to go out and look for him without getting swept away by the deluge. Even he had barely been able to withstand the driving rain. Now his only heir was gone, and Spitelout and his awful son, Snotlout, were in the running for the title of Chief of Berk. It was exhausting.

The chief of Berk sat up and got out of bed, stretching his thick arms tiredly, and put on his helmet. The other side of the bed was conspicuously empty, as it had always been for the past fourteen years. No woman could replace Valka, and he didn't want anyone to try.

"Chief! Chief!" someone shouted outside. It sounded like the Ingerman boy, Fishlegs. Stoick left his room, his mood darkening, and opened the door to see the husky boy on his porch breathing heavily.

"Chief Stoick, you have to come quick! There-there are these people in the arena, and they're riding dragons and a whole bunch of weird animals! And-and they're freeing the dragons in the cages! Astrid and Snotlout are fighting the leaders, but there are three of them, and it looks like they're outmatched!" Fishlegs said hysterically. He looked at him with alarm and confusion.

"What do you mean? Speak clearly, Fishlegs!" he ordered sternly. The teenager looked back in the direction of the arena, and when Stoick followed his gaze, he was shocked to see that he was telling the truth. Brightly colored dragons, huge birds, and who knew what else were surrounding the arena. In the distance, shouts could be heard, and the faint sound of metal meeting metal in battle.

"I don't know who they are, sir, but the three leaders demand to see you, Stoick," he continued worriedly. "They were riding dragons, and they're three species I've never seen before."

"Did they say their names?" he growled roughly. Fishlegs nodded and told him, his voice shaking. The angry look on Stoick's face changed to one of horror and shock. No, it couldn't be. It was impossible. It was a trick, or a lie, or something. Those couldn't be their real names.

Right?

* * *

 **Author's Notes: DUN DUN DUN! Cliffhanger!**

 **That was actually a pretty entertaining cartoon on PBS.**

 **Okay, back to business. I'm kinda sorry (but not really) for leaving this on such a huge cliffhanger (and for it being so short), but it'll be resolved eventually. In episode 16. Heh heh heh.**

 **Anyways, with that, we come to the end of** ** _Strays, Episode 2: Last of the Winterstorms_** **! I'm so excited! Now you guys can find out what I've been keeping secret from you for two whole episodes.**

 **What lies in the Northern Deadlands that Hiccup needs to see?**

 **Who were the people freeing dragons in the arena?**

 **Why was Stoick so stunned to hear their names?**

 **Will I ever stop asking rhetorical questions?**

 **See you in** ** _Strays, Episode 3: Personal Battles_** **! Wild Cat 214, out!**


End file.
